The Slammin'
Salmon
I
could go into great detail about all the myriad of ways that comic troupe
Broken Lizard’s latest movie The Slammin’ Salmon is inept and simply
does not work, but that would be giving the film much more thought than the
makers did.
Instead, I will simply say this: I did not laugh one single time in the 90
minute running time of The Slammin’ Salmon. Not even a guilty
chuckle. Even the most pathetic comedies usually stumble over one or two
laughs.
Honestly, I’d just as soon leave my review of The Slammin’ Salmon at
that and try my best to forget that it even exists, but unfortunately my
work ethic is apparently stronger than that of Broken Lizard. I can not
rationalize doing the absolute minimum of work and hoping that people will
buy it.
Not
that I should be surprised. Even merely the title of The Slammin’ Salmon
should have been a warning sign that the movie was gonna stink.
However, Broken Lizard has reached a certain cult notoriety and I keep
wanting to give them the benefit of the doubt that they somewhat earned when
their film Super Troopers became a surprise minor critical and
popular hit several years ago. Lizard members Jay Chandrasekhar and Kevin
Heffernan have even translated their success into minor success as
directors.
However, in the years since their breakthrough, the guys have slimed us with
the inept likes of Club Dread and Beerfest.
And,
shockingly, The Slammin’ Salmon is a brand new low
point for the troupe.
The
action (if you can call it that) centers around a hip Miami upscale
restaurant which employs a whole group of inept and borderline insane
waiters. They have to make $20,000 in sales in a single night, or their
boss will lose the restaurant to the Japanese mob. Of course, this all
hinges on a man who turns out to not know the difference between a dollar
and a yen, so even the set-up is a cheat.
The
closest thing to signs of life comes from the few ringers that the Lizard
boys brought in trying to prop their movie up. Sitcom actresses Cobie
Smulders (How I Met Your Mother) and April Bowlby (Two and a Half
Men) try to make the most of their underwritten roles as sister
waitresses – one smart and one sexy (though both, obviously, are sexy to
anyone with eyes). Saturday Night Live cast
member Will Forte is a lone island of calm amidst the overwrought
mugging as a customer who sits at a table for hours reading War and Peace,
only ordering tea the whole time.
Unfortunately, Michael Clarke Duncan (The Green Mile) is wasted and
shamed – yet again, the guy takes way too many bad roles – as the
punch-drunk former boxing champ who owns the place. Duncan does his best to
punch up the tired situations his character is given, but it’s a losing
battle. Vivica A. Fox is also wasted as a Mary J.
Blige / Beyonce-ish pop/soul star named Nutella. (Yeah, that’s really the
character name.)
If
you laugh at first degree burns, mental illness, big noses, end-credit
bloopers, being run down by a horse, a guy having to poop out a ring he has
mistakenly eaten and a really horrible and completely unnecessary parody of
Survivor’s song “Eye of the Tiger,” then maybe The Slammin’ Salmon is
the movie for you.
The
rest of us should avoid it like a bad case of e coli.
This
Salmon is rancid.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2010 PopEntertainment.com.
All rights reserved. Posted: April 3, 2010.
