BEFORE: Similar to last night's movie, about regular people who get caught up in a mess of espionage (I think) - and James Franco was hosting SNL last night in an act of synchronicity (for me).
THE PLOT: A stoner and his dealer are forced to go on the run from the police after the pothead witnesses a cop commit a murder.
AFTER: OK, I was wrong. This has nothing to do with spies, I don't know what I was thinking...this is just about a couple of stoners who get caught up in a drug war.
It's one notch above "Harold & Kumar", I'll give it that, but in the end that's not saying much. I guess I don't find the antics of stoned people to be good enough fodder for a movie plot. I just kept cringing as these two morons kept getting into deeper and deeper trouble.
Seth Rogen plays Dale, a process server who accidentally watches a drug kingpin (Gary Cole) and a cop (Rosie Perez) waste a member of a rival cartel, and he gets traced (through a particular strain of weed) back to his drug dealer, Saul (James Franco). So they both have to go on the run - but since they're constantly stoned, they're always either panicking, acting irresponsibly, or smoking more weed to calm down.
They hook up with Saul's connection, Red (Danny McBride) and they're chased by two hitmen (Kevin Corrigan and Craig Robinson) but there's no plan, at least not a good one, for getting out of trouble, so the situation just keeps getting worse and worse. It's hard for me to find a point, or a message, or a reason for this all to be happening...
Cameos by Ed Begley, Jr., Nora Dunn, Joe LoTruglio (from "Reno 911" and "The State") and SNL's Bill Hader.
The story is really a "5" but I'm adding 1 point for the soundtrack - starting with "Electric Avenue", one of the best songs of the 80's (or any decade), and ending with an original song by Huey Lewis over the end credits. (whatever happened to Huey Lewis & the News, anyway?)
RATING: 6 out of 10 dimebags
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