Review by Daniel Lima It's rare for a filmmaker's artistic low point to be rewarded with critical recognition, but it happens. Case in point: Peter Farrelly, who went from making lowbrow, gross-out comedies to the Academy Award-winning, profoundly asinine and racist film Green Book. One additional foray into "serious" filmmaking later (The Greatest Beer Run Ever), he's back to his roots with Ricky Stanicky, a dumb comedy with no greater ambition than getting some laughs. It's largely unsuccessful, but it does an admirable job as a showcase for one towering performance. A trio of friends have been invoking their fabricated friend, Ricky Stanicky, to make excuses and get out of trouble since childhood, from youthful pranks to golfing excursions charged to their company. After they're caught in one too many lies and their families demand to meet this mysterious figure, they decide there is only one way forward: hiring a struggling actor to take on the role of Ricky. As committed as he becomes to his gig, however, they find it might have been easier if they came clean in the first place. Looking at this film, it's incredible to think that it is the work of a commercially successful director who won the Oscar for Best Picture only five years ago. Green Book and The Greatest Beer Run Ever might not be among the most visually dynamic movies, but they do look like "Real Movies," productions with money behind them and meant to be experienced on a big screen. By contrast, there is a level of cheap artifice here usually reserved for direct-to-video trash (or, these days, the most expensive studio projects). Flat and diffused lighting coupled with barren production design makes every space feel like a set rather than an actual location. A lack of resources isn't the filmmaker's fault, and a lack of visual ingenuity isn't a huge problem on a road comedy. However, it does speak to the industry's fickleness: you're only as good as your last movie, and no one saw Farrelly's last movie. The most important quality of a comedy is, of course, how funny it is. Ricky Stanicky is a mixed bag. The script has been floating around Hollywood for over a decade, and while much of the interest surrounding it may simply be due to the promising premise, there are only a handful of inspired gags and lines scattered through the film. The film is at its best when it embraces its own stupidity, gleefully engaging in the kind of obscene, low-effort humor that seems out of fashion today. The best example of this would be a cutaway gag of the struggling actor's Atlantic City club act, performing lewd versions of classic rock songs. The blunt crudeness of the changed lyrics, for selections that seem to offer ample opportunity for more clever modifications, is bound to get a laugh out of anyone. Whether this is a Farrelly contribution or a part of the script that enticed him, it's clear that this material is what he's most comfortable working with. The ace up his sleeve is the one genuinely impassioned, movie star performance of the movie: John Cena, in the titular role. Cena has shown himself to be an incredibly gifted comedic actor, and what he can wring out of what he's given here is truly astounding. Rather than simply making Ricky — or "Rock Hard" Rod, the man behind the mask — a complete caricature, he imbues the character with such sincerity, sensitivity, and warmth that he completely takes over the film whenever he's on-screen. He's able to sell every one-liner no matter how weak, but his real strength is finding the humanity in such a deeply ridiculous figure. And when he actually has to throw his weight behind a gag, he does so with a superhuman lack of self-consciousness; listening to him belt out a pornographic rendition of "Baby I Love the Way" ("Baby I Masturbate") is one of the greatest delights of the year so far. This is the kind of performance that should be acclaimed and awarded. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the rest of the cast. Most of the ensemble seems to be just punching the clock, dutifully setting up or spitting out jokes with no real attempt to sell the material, with Andrew Santino, in particular, seeming like a random passer-by that was pulled off the street. William H. Macy does show up to work, professional as ever. While Zac Efron makes an admirable attempt to do justice to his character's emotional journey, that narrative is so threadbare it's hard to imagine anyone pulling it off. For some reason, this film seems much more interested in laying out that narrative than going for laughs. As wonderful as the high concept is, Ricky doesn't actually start getting mixed up in the trio's lives almost halfway through the movie, with a baffling amount of time spent setting up the circumstances that lead to it. In trying to justify the conceit, a strained Freudian explanation is concocted about how Efron's horrible childhood makes him feel like he needs to lie. For as much time is spent on this, it never feels as interesting or organic as the story of Ricky, and it begs the obvious question of why he gets this treatment when he has had two accomplices on this grand fib for years. It feels more like something tacked out of the desire to conform to traditional storytelling beats than to benefit of the story being told.
Perhaps worst of all is the film's craft. While a comedy like this doesn't need to be beautiful, it does need some semblance of rhythm and timing for jokes to land and a jovial atmosphere to be maintained. Instead, the film is filled with dead air — long pauses between already sparse zingers that make every scene drag. That constant silence makes the lack of sound design more evident, adding to the feeling of artificiality. This, in turn, makes the actual gags feel awkward and ungainly, with random interruptions in an aural stillness rather than a cohesive and steady stream of comedy. As flimsy as the comedic beats of the movie are, it's hard not to wonder if decades in the business and a sojourn into more respectable awards fare has dulled Farrelly's comedic sensibilities. Yet, if you put the crass and messy Ricky Stanicky next to his previous solo projects, it is clear that this is comfortably the best of the bunch. It could be tighter, more focused, better acted, and funnier. Still, at the end of the day, John Cena decked out as a member of Devo, screaming out self-love instructions to the tune of "Whip It," represents the intellectual and artistic high water mark of his oeuvre — even if it's still not very good. Ricky Stanicky is available to stream on Amazon Prime beginning March 7. Rating: 2/5
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