Funny comedy undermined by studio formula

Rating: 7/10 (13 September 2013)

We're the Millers delivers some great laughs and lots of promise before it descends into lame cliché that robs it of potentially classic comedy status. With an interesting, edgy premise – neighbourhood drug dealer forced to smuggle weed from Mexico hires a fake family to get it across the border – the movie consistently delivers laughs-out-loud as this band of foul-mouthed social malcontents somehow clicks and makes it happen. The first half is totally engaging, except perhaps for an implausible Ed Helms as the affable drug baron, while the pace and laughs allow you to overlook a few minor plot flaws, which unfortunately snowball in the schmaltzy second half.
This a Hollywood movie, so you can't really expect the cynical take on the American family to continue, but the switch from satire to sentiment left me wondering if the script was butchered by studio bean counters, or was it always lame? The movie becomes part cliché RV comedy when they meet up with another family on wheels, part teen love story, part drug thug chase movie, and ultimately a full-on family-values feel-good fest that becomes nauseatingly obvious. While the cast is great and keeps up the laughs, the plot becomes a formulaic insult to the intelligence.
Without giving anything away, I just want to know why does Hollywood feel it has to embrace the truly pukeful heart-on-the-sleeve speech finale? Do all Americans at some stage in their lives find themselves upon the podium, or staring down the barrel of a gun, and deliver lump-in-the-throat speeches that make you want to cheer for America or the human race? And do they get away with it without being heckled, laughed off stage, or shot? Go see this movie for the laughs, but it could have been so much better under the guiding hand of bolder indi producers.