Short of The Big Lebowski, stoner flicks have proven a redundant lot, each with their share of short-term memory-loss jokes, a few references to the munchies, a soundtrack filled with classic reggae favorites, and at least one montage of your title characters getting really, really, really high.
Then there’s the comparatively new class of I-don’t-wanna-grow-up buddy comedies—Superbad, Knocked Up, The 40-Year-Old Virgin— produced by Judd Apatow and his band of lost boys. They’re each dialogue-heavy comedies of error that rely on their likable, slacker protagonists and the homoerotic company they keep to sustain a flow of belly laughs for two hours. Apatow and actor-come-writer Seth Rogen (Knocked Up) have a gift for creating one-liners that fit tidily on t-shirts and beg to meld into the lexicon of 18-34-year-old male cliques that, shamelessly, fancy themselves as real-life versions of the groups portrayed in the movies.
In Pineapple Express, producer Apatow and co-writers Rogen and Evan Wright blend these two tropes into a foul-mouthed summer flick that, if nothing else, makes good on its aim of belly laughs from beginning to end.
Formulaic as it may be, Pineapple Express is indisputably funny. James Franco (Spiderman) assumes the affable role that jumpstarted his career more than ten years ago in the critically adored and publicly ignored TV show, Freaks and Geeks, which remains the high-point of Apatow and the gang’s still-young careers. Saul Silver (Franco) is a lonely drug dealer whose supply of Pineapple Express, an uber-rare strain of marijuana, is, tragically, the only one of its kind in state limits. Loyal customer Dale Denton visits Saul, buys a bag of the mythic strain, and returns to his crummy job dropping subpoenas on unsuspecting victims.
From there, Denton sets out to deliver his final subpoena of the day. As luck would have it, this seemingly simple task leads to him witnessing a crooked cop and a drug kingpin murder a rival drug kingpin, which causes him to drop his joint and high tale it back to Saul’s place for cover. Silly pothead! You dropped your fingerprint-rare strain of marijuana right at the scene of a drug murder! That’ll lead the crooked cops right to you! Somewhere, Cheech, Silent Bob, Ted “Theodore” Logan, Kumar, Smokey, Jeff Spicoli, and Slater are smoking a celebratory joint in your honor.
If it sounds like I’m panning the predictable plot and lack of substance contained therein, let me assure you, I’m not. Pineapple Express knows exactly what it is, which absolves it of blame on each of these otherwise crucial fronts. Where previous Apatow flicks strive to have a heart, Pineapple Express is fully aware of why it’s here. Appropriately, it’s like the pothead who lived on your floor in college; it’s happy just to make you laugh. And laugh you will, whether by a turn of shock-value physical humor, a string of esoteric background gags, or the sort of clever dialogue that made the clan’s previous films immensely successful.
For at least a while longer, Apatow, Rogen, Franco, et al. can remain atop the totem pole of mindless R-rated comedy. Still, leaving the theater, it dawned on me that the formula began showing signs of strain, something that simply wasn’t the case last year when Knocked Up and Superbad each debuted at number 1, and to a lesser extent, earlier this year when Forgetting Sarah Marshall debuted at number 2. On the heels of those three cash cows, Pineapple Express will likely open at number 1 or 2 this weekend (The Dark Knight is still around, after all), but it’ll be interesting to see how Apatow’s next project opens. Something tells me the well of male camaraderie is running dry.