Seth Rogen and James Franco’s buddy comedy has had what feels like a perfect storm to coincide with its release; the Sony hacks have made the film both a political statement as well as a welcome satire of the ‘enemy’, the ‘enemy’ being North Korea, who have taken responsibility for said hacks. The Interview is already being touted as a cult classic coming from the almost complete non-release, and until now, the few film journalists who’d seen it throwing out coveted coverage and reviews only heightened the need to see what all the fuss was about. All The Interview really needs to do is be a funny, slapstick attack on North Korea with enough provocative material to justify Sony’s current troubles and everyone will be happy and celebrate the freedom of expression and how art has persevered over censorship once again. Except what the film actually is, is a tired diatribe that just fails to keep above water amongst its peers or actually maintain any level of real relevance.
Taking the lead roles, Rogen and Franco play a media duo at the top of their game. Dave Skylark (Franco) is a television presenter for a celebrity current affairs talk-show in which such front-line news as Eminem and Matthew McConnaughey’s sexual endeavours are questioned live on-air for all to see. Aaron Rapoport (Rogen) is his man-behind-the-curtain anchor who feeds him lines and constructs the headline narrative to maximize viewers and frothy voyeurism. The chemistry between these two is undeniable, with them having shared the screen together regularly, so as leading men they aren’t a bad choice. What is a bad choice is the odd couple routine they have elected for, with Skylark being a sex-hungry, idiotic misogynist while Rapoport is his human-half. We’ve seen Franco and Rogen in better roles than this, with more to go on than basic cartoons whose writing feels half-done and just left to pasture. Already, before North Korea’s fearless leader even comes into frame, the film’s other punchline of taking a cynical look at how America treats ‘news’ coverage is simply bland. There’s nothing novel about poking fun at something very few take overtly serios, and with this year having seen the release of Nightcrawler, a veritable modern-day classic and a far more sincerely cutting look at televised click-bait, the joke finds itself lost in its own blandness, struggling to generate anything more than a warm giggle while we wait for the real reason we’re watching.
This reason being the depiction of one of the world’s most infamous men, the Orwellian emperor Kim Jong-Un. And here’s where The Interview loses all hope. Going into this subject matter of an American attack on North Korea, there was the always present danger that writer Dan Sterling, along with Rogen and Evan Goldberg, would drift too close to Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Team America of 2004. The South Park-creators’ puppet comedy is as hilarious as it is comprehensive in shaming and parading against both America and North Korea. Here, they haven’t so much drifted close to Parker and Stone’s material as they have lifted the puppetized Kim Jong for their own. Franco’s Skylark does have some funny sequences with Randall Park’s Kim Jong-Un, but everything about how they construct Jong-Un’s personality, both as a leader and as a person, is a near verbatim replication of what Trey
and Matt wrote. This is made slightly more problematic when the poking fun at North Korea isn’t met with anywhere near the same amount of time and energy put into taking stabs at themselves – if one only makes fun of one nationality or culture, and fails to be funny while doing it, its just racist.
More the pity is that during the last half-hour, the film delivers on some very hearty laughs, upping the pace into high-gear and fully delving into slapstick territory. If the entire film had been the same pace as these last 25 or so minutes with the same amount taken off the middle act, it would be a film fully worthy of the reputation bestowed upon it by circumstance. Instead, the ‘huh huh huh, wouldn’t it be funny if….’ stoner comedy has lofty expectations it simply can’t reach, and instead becomes all the more noticeable for the flaws and re-hashes through-out. Seth Rogen, James Franco and Evan Goldberg are capable of genuine comedy, and their mix of offbeat,gross-out humor and human sincerity has worked to great success in the past. The Interview is proof, however, that they should stick to their smaller budget, down-to-Earth stories and leave the cutting-edge satire to those better suited to it. Oh, and stick to writing their own jokes, while they’re at it.
Over-hyped and poorly executed attempt at satire fails to garner any more than some passing giggles. 3/10
