An action-comedy about the best of buds

Rating: 10/10 (18 August 2008)

I just saw the excellent and laugh-out-loud hilarious action-comedy "Pineapple Express" for a 7:50 showing at the local theater. I'm not even a stoner, yet I still found the "high as a kite" humor and pot-smoking to be down-right hilarious; my ribs are still hurting, I was laughing so hard. As with most comedies of late in which Judd Apatow is involved, "Pineapple Express" is indeed funny - with plenty of laughs and late in the film, blood + guts "Die Hard-/John Woo"-style action shoot-'em-up - but somewhere in there is a subtext on male-bonding and friendship that proves that these new Apatow comedies are certainly more than they appear on the surface. "Pineapple Express" involves Dale Denton (the lovable new face of Hollywood slacker-dom, Seth Rogen, also the film's co-writer along with Evan Goldberg), a process server (he hands out subpoenas and other legal documents to truant folks due in court) and out-and-out pothead who's also dating Angie (Amber Heard), an 18-year-old high school girl. Anyway, Dale witnesses a murder one night that was committed by a local drug kingpin (Gary Cole) and his corrupt-cop girlfriend (Rosie Perez). Fleeing the scene of the crime in terror, Dale goes to his only (and unlikely) source of refuge, his dealer Saul (James Franco, the film's most valuable and unlikely asset). It turns out that Saul is in possession of a new and extremely rare kind of marijuana, the "pineapple express" of the title - he's one of two dealers known to be in possession of it, in fact - and so when they learn that the drug kingpin's assassins are gunning for them, they take the contraband and go on the run. As it turns out, their time on the run proves to be a perfect bonding experience: Saul likes Dale (in a perfectly heterosexual way) and during their deals is always trying to warm up to him so that they can be friends, not just dealer and client. And there are plenty of moments in this buddy comedy where the two get a chance to shine. Franco, as I stated earlier, is the film's most valuable and unlikely asset. Frankly, he steals the show and he's the guy in the movie that you feel the most for. As the perpetually stoned Saul, you see it in him his yearning for friendship and desire to move beyond the increasingly boring day-to-day routine of pot-dealing and into greener pastures, like caring for his grandmother and nurturing his knack for industrial design (he invents a joint shaped like a cross). In other words, he's lonely. So in a way, if they survive their time on the run, Dale and Saul will without question become the best of buds. "Pineapple Express" is a wonderful and action-packed comedy, smartly written by Rogen and Goldberg, and directed by David Gordon Green. Of their comedies of late ("The 40-Year-old Virgin," "Knocked Up," "Superbad"), Apatow and friends' "Pineapple Express" is the best one I've seen yet. The laughs are a mile-a-minute, and while some may be turned off in the film's third act by an ultra-bloody shootout in a warehouse involving the drug kingpin and his rivals - unnamed Asian gangsters, who also deliver some hardy laughs themselves - I guarantee that even there, there's a little something for everyone: blood, guts, guns, cheesy one-liners ("You've been served!"), and explosions - which shows that director Green and his co-writers were in perfect control of this well-executed film. In an age where so few comedies are actually funny, "Pineapple Express" proves that you can go to the movies with your friends, and come out after the show's over - The Best of Buds.
10/10