Off beat fun

Rating: 6/10 (12 June 2008)

When I saw the trailer for Hot Rod last year, it threw me off a whole lot, I wasn't sure what to expect, it looked kind of lame to be honest. But I decided to go ahead and rent it, just give it a chance, so I watched it this morning and this was one of the more off beat comedies I have seen since Walk Hard earlier this year. Now off beat comedies can go either way, either it's going to be funny as heck or just plain awful and something that nobody will get. Now I'm kind of stuck in between, because Hot Rod has some genuinely funny moments that will just make you loose your breath from laughing so hard, but then there are some moments like the "Cool Beans" scene that you go "ooooooook", and have no idea what you just saw. But one thing I always like in a film is if the cast looked like they took the film for what it was and just had fun, and that's what made the story funny.
Rod is a young inspiring stunt man who constantly fails at jumping, his family, friends, even the whole community thinks he's a joke. But he's got something bigger going on, his step dad won't stop treating him like a punching bag, so Rod has promised that one day he'll kick his step dad's butt. But when his step dad needs a heart transplant, it'll cost fifty thousand dollars, so Rod and his friends decide to raise the money by Rod's stunts so they can give Rod's step dad the heart transplant and so Rod can finally kick his step dad's butt.
Hot Rod, I'm not sure I'd recommend it so fast to someone, while it has some funny moments, there are things that are just so strange and felt like they were written by a twelve year old at times. I didn't take the movie seriously, so I'm not just being uptight about it. But this movie was good for what it was, I have to admit there were some just hilarious scenes, I always loved it when Rod came up to his dying step father and told him that he was going to punch him in the face, I don't know, maybe it's the way he said it, but believe me, it's so funny. This is a movie only certain people are going to get, so I'm just going to say that you'll have to see it for yourself.
6/10