We're the Millers (2013)
Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber
A veteran pot dealer creates a fake family as part of his plan to move a huge shipment of weed into the U.S. from Mexico.
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19 films that influenced We're the Millers
What critics say influenced We're the Millers
Now that the legal demonization of marijuana use is slowly eroding, why not a middle-class answer to a stoner comedy that pays homage to "National Lampoon's Vacation" and extolls the virtues of family life?
The result owes a lot to such classic comedies as "The Great Outdoors," "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and, especially, "National Lampoon's Vacation," in which Chevy Chase reminds his kids, "Getting there is half the fun."
An affable if only passably funny effort that reunites Jason Sudeikis with his Horrible Bosses co-star Jennifer Aniston, We’re the Millers rides much the same highway as National Lampoon’s Vacation did in an earlier era of raunchy road comedies.
The premise is a brilliant modern take on National Lampoon’s Vacation with a raunchier edge and a creative spin on the family road trip formula.
Think “National Lampoon’s Vacation” retooled for the “Hangover” generation and you’ll have a good idea of what “We’re the Millers” is like.
They manage to pick up the weed without much difficulty, actually, but the trouble comes after, in the kinds of obstacles that are familiar from every family-adventure comedy from The Out-of-Towners to National Lampoon's Vacation.
“If you’re loud and annoying,” Mel Brooks informed Madeline Kahn in High Anxiety , “psychologically, people don’t notice you.”
The result owes a lot to such classic comedies as "The Great Outdoors," "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and, especially, "National Lampoon's Vacation," in which Chevy Chase reminds his kids, "Getting there is half the fun."
Sorry, but the sight of Jennifer Aniston in translucent underwear imitating Jennifer Beals from Flashdance (to the wrong music) just ain't worth it.
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There’s lightning wit, meta self-awareness and Farrelly Bros. level (There’s Something About Mary) testicle humour that guarantee you’ll get your money’s worth.
And there's little doubt that a scene featuring a tarantula crawling up a teen's shorts will result in an exaggerated genitalia view that would make the Farrelly Brothers ("There's Something About Mary") proud.
At some point Pretty Woman comes up in relation to Aniston’s character, who’s not — so not, she doth protest — a prostitute, and you remember that that movie was once a downer that became a Garry Marshall upper.
Thanks to a game cast and that fine premise, the film’s tame gags and misfired comedy play as if it were … well, a minor Billy Wilder comedy, say “Buddy Buddy.”
2006's " RV " by way of 2008's " Pineapple Express ," "We're the Millers" is a proudly rude, unashamedly vulgar road-cum-drug comedy until it turns all gooey in the home stretch.
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They manage to pick up the weed without much difficulty, actually, but the trouble comes after, in the kinds of obstacles that are familiar from every family-adventure comedy from The Out-of-Towners to National Lampoon's Vacation.
Imagine that great Billy Wilder film about desperate deception, “Some Like It Hot,” only with drug smugglers at the U.S./Mexican border posing as a Brady Bunch.