We’re the Millers
Comedy Caper | 110 Minutes | 2013 | United States
(3/4)
Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber | Producers: Chris Bender, Vincent Newman, Tucker Tooley, Happy Walters | Writers: Bob Fisher, Steve Faber, Sean Anders, John Morris | Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudeikis, Will Poulter, Emma Roberts, Nick Offerman, Kathryn Hahn, Molly Quinn, Ed Helms, Tomer Sisley, Mark L. Young | Music: Theodore Shapiro, Ludwig Göransson | Cinematography: Barry Peterson | Editor: Mike Sale
In what sounds like a riff on an old joke, a drug dealer, a stripper, a runaway, and a nerd climb into a camper van south of the border. David Clark (Jason Sudeikis) is a low-level marijuana dealer who finds himself beholden to his supplier, the sleazy businessman Brad Gurdlinger (Ed Helms), when a couple of street hoods make off with his stash. To cover the debt with a little added compensation, David reluctantly agrees to smuggle a ‘smidge’ of weed from Mexico, despite a tight deadline and risks too numerous to count.
To that end he enlists the help of Rose O’Reilly (Jennifer Aniston), a stripper who lives in his building; Casey Mathis (Emma Roberts), a nineteen-year-old runaway who has turned to petty crime and a life on the streets; and Kenny Rossmore (Will Poulter), a wide-eyed but socially stunted eighteen year old who has been abandoned by his mother. They fly to Mexico in the guise of a conventional middle-class family, hoping that the ruse will help them back over the border, where they each expect to receive a dwindling share of the loot.
That is the premise of We’re the Millers, a comedy caper by a team of directors and screenwriters whose previous credits include Wedding Crashers and Dodgeball. In fact the film avoids the potential pitfalls of clammy escapades and local colour, making the trip to Mexico no more than a routine pickup. With the drugs already in tow, stuffed to the brim inside of their camper, instead We’re the Millers focuses on the long journey home.
We’re the Millers possesses a rare combination of bawdy humour and credible sentiment. Kenny suffers a gratuitously swollen testicle, and David sells his ‘son’ in the direction of roadside fellatio, hoping to get the family out of an untimely jam, but in general the film doesn’t leverage expressions of feeling for a few easy laughs. The limited means and personal inadequacies of the characters don’t make them comic ciphers incapable of anything like plausible emotion. The relationships which form over the course of We’re the Millers are built to last.
The narrative arc may be potted and sketchy, but the film contains plenty of laughs. David is flaky and high-strung in contrast to the pragmatism shown by the rest of his makeshift family, but the Millers themselves play it fairly straight in the midst of their farcical surrounds. Nick Offerman and Kathryn Hahn are engaging as a couple of sexually-coiled fellow campers. Ed Helms is cannily cast opposite Jason Sudeikis, playing a similarly middle-aged malcontent who unlike Sudeikis possesses no redeeming charm. Mark L. Young delights in his fleeting appearance as a white-trash ride attendant. In all of her roles, Jennifer Aniston grasps the humour and rarely ever overacts.
Aside from the spider bite which leads to a hospital visit on the back of a rapidly ballooning ballsack, the biggest gross-out gag in the film involves a couple of kisses, deriving its shock from the circumstances and relationships forged by the film. Singalongs and fireworks add to the bonhomie. We’re the Millers never feels tame though it rarely strays from convention, there are more gasps than groans, and it wrings just the right amount of tension from the easy chemistry and endearing personalities of its clan.
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