WOW (INHALES DEEPLY, HOLDS IT) ...THIS STUFF (EXHALES) ISN'T BAD!

Bad doper movies are like bad kids' movies.

The makers of both kinds of film assume their audiences won't be
overly discriminating, as long as you throw in lots of diverting
visuals and jokes that hit the target audience where they live.

Fortunately, Pineapple Express is not a bad movie. Quite the
contrary.

Unlike most Cheech and Chong movies of the '70s and '80s, or more
recent examples of doper cinema, such as the 1998 comedy Half Baked,
this comedy scripted by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Superbad)
actually has a plot:

Process server Dale Denton (played by Rogen), after scoring some of
the super-powered titular weed from his sweetly benign supplier Saul
Silver (a surprisingly funny James Franco), drives to the house of
L.A. crime kingpin Ted Jones (Gary Cole) to serve him a subpoena.

But before Dale even gets out of his car, he witnesses Jones murder a
competitor in the presence of an L.A. cop (Rosie Perez).

Half out of it, Dale returns to Saul's pad and, in one of those
tangents of twisted logic common to pot-heads, assumes Ted will
recognize the source of the roach he left behind, so he urges Saul to
flee along with him.

Against all odds, Dale's conjecture is exactly right. But the two
realize that if the evil Ted is in league with the L.A.P.D., there may
ultimately be nowhere to run. In fact, everyone they know, including
Dale's high school girlfriend (Amber Heard) and Saul's own supplier
Red (Danny McBride) may be at risk from Ted's vengeance.

Making a movie by and for potheads, director David Gordon Green (All
the Real Girls) knows enough to divert from the plot to capture the
goofball repartee between Dale and Saul. He also knows that while the
movie will resolve in a bullet-riddled action movie climax, he is also
obliged to lace the action beats with a surreal comic town, having
Saul race through the city in a commandeered police car with his foot
caught in the windshield, or depantsing Dale as he makes a heroic
Backdraft-style rescue from a fiery building.

Indeed, the movie takes on a decidedly Quentin Tarantino flavour as
Green bounces between over-the-top action beats and meandering through
Dale and Saul's eccentric conversations:

Dale: How could he find us?

Saul: Umm, heat-seeking missiles, bloodhounds, foxes... barracudas.

Dale: I'm kind of flabbergasted when you say things like that. It's weird.

Saul: Thank you.

Dale: Not a compliment.

As the movie is grounded in a fairly solid plot, Green also takes care
to make the duo substantial characters, not defined exclusively by
their marijuana use, but by their frailties.

Most doper movies tend to unravel in lazy, laissez-faire narratives,
but Pineapple Express distinguishes itself from the rest of the
sub-genre with a respect for the notion of a story and characters.

And that makes it quality stuff.

Movie Review

Pineapple Express

Starring Seth Rogen, James Franco

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne

18A

3 1/2 out of five