Cedar Rapids

admin | April 29, 2011 | Comments (0)

DIR: Miguel Arteta • WRI: Phil Johnston • PRO: Jim Burke, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor • DOP: Chuy Chávez • ED: Eric Kissack • DES: Doug J. Meerdink • Cast: Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Anne Heche

Ed Helms (The Hangover, The Office) plays an insurance agent for Brown Star (geddit?) and he is sent to an insurance convention weekend to represent his company, which has won the Two Diamond Award at this convention for the last three years consecutively.

On the weekend he befriends John C Reilly (doing an impression of Will Ferrell in every Will Ferrell movie), Anne Heche (doing an impression of Vera Farmiga in Up In The Air) and Isiah Whitlock Jnr (stealing the movie’s best jokes by doing an impression of someone from The Wire). Ed Helm’s character has never been on a plane, drank alcohol or done drugs before in his life. Before the weekend is over, guess how many of the above have been tried and tested to the point of the abuse thanks to his three new friends?

The film is packed to the rafters with recognisable faces from other funny films and TV shows, and therein lies the problem: no two people in the film seem to think they’re in the same kind of comedy. Helms is goofy and innocent, Reilly is wildly OTT and obnoxious, Heche underplays it to the point of being aloof… There’s no through-line of humour for the film, which means it’s only truly funny here and there.

It’s nothing that hasn’t been done a million times before, and it’s far from the worst movie of its kind, but considering the stellar cast, and it coming from the makers of Chuck & Buck and Sideways, it is disappointing that it should end up so average.

Rory Cashin

Rated 15A (see IFCO website for details)
Cedar Rapids is released on 29th April 2011