Snatched (2017)
Directed by Jonathan Levine
When her boyfriend dumps Emily, a spontaneous woman in her 30s, she persuades her ultra-cautious mom to accompany her on a vacation to Ecuador. When these two very different women are trapped on this wild journey, their bond as mother and daughter is tested and strengthened while they attempt to navigate the jungle and escape.
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37 films that influenced Snatched
What critics say influenced Snatched
Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn are funny, but they deserve better material than this 'Romancing the Stone' riff.
Taken at face value, Snatched was probably envisaged as a kind of Romancing The Stone style caper for the Taken generation that combines edgy action-comedy with some touching mother-daughter moments.
Soon, the film starts to mirror plot lines from “Romancing the Stone.”
There’s a great bit involving Christopher Meloni as a Romancing the Stone Michael Douglas wannabe that builds to a spectacularly insane conclusion, while a running gag involving a dog whistle is paid off nicely during the film’s final act.
Instead, the odd-couple comedy—a surprisingly violent and unsurprisingly crass play on Romancing the Stone—runs the gamut from mildly amusing to dismal.
No, the only reason it registered in my head was due to it being a pivotal location in the action-adventure rom-com, "Romancing the Stone."
Where’s Liam Neeson (“Taken”) and his particular set of skills when you need him to liven up a humorless, pointless exercise?
At its best, Snatched is cleverer than its Taken-invoking double entendre of a title would suggest.
Judging by the mildly naughty past-participle title, you might as well see “Snatched” as a raunchy female comedy version of “Taken,” assuming you care to see it at all.
This spoof of Taken pairs today's comedy firebrand Amy Schumer and yesterday's icon Goldie Hawn as Emily and Linda, a vacationing mother and daughter fighting and fleeing their Colombian captors.
Their dilemma is less like Taken, more like Outrageous Fortune, the low-brow Bette Midler–Shelley Long vehicle from the ’80s.
Hawn and Schumer’s characters are captured, but they keep managing to escape, making “Snatched” less a comic version of “Taken” and more like something out of a “Scooby Doo” plot.
Hawn, in theory at least, is supposed to be playing one of those cranky maternal comic nightmares, like Shirley MacLaine in “Terms of Endearment” or “Postcards from the Edge” or — to tie it to the franchise era of Mother’s-Day-weekend-as-marketing concept — Jane Fonda in “Monster-in-Law.”
Their dilemma is less like Taken, more like Outrageous Fortune, the low-brow Bette Midler–Shelley Long vehicle from the ’80s.
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Hawn, in theory at least, is supposed to be playing one of those cranky maternal comic nightmares, like Shirley MacLaine in “Terms of Endearment” or “Postcards from the Edge” or — to tie it to the franchise era of Mother’s-Day-weekend-as-marketing concept — Jane Fonda in “Monster-in-Law.”
Casting a hot young performer opposite a veteran has been a common Hollywood ploy ever since Wallace Beery teamed with 9-year-old Jackie Cooper in 1931's The Champ.
It feels like one of those ‘90s Touchstone Films comedies, like Big Business or Captain Ron , in which two funny people were thrown together, put in front of a camera, and told, “Fill the next 90 minutes.”
That makes the likes of 1963's High and Low (???½, PG, 143 minutes), one of his contemporary features, worth investigating.
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After a 15-year absence from the movies, Goldie Hawn returns in an almost ceremonial capacity in Snatched, passing the baton of up-for-anything comedy to Amy Schumer, who shares with her a willingness to drive into a muck, Private Benjamin style.
The mom is Goldie Hawn, 71, who made a career out of playing ditzes with hidden reserves of pluck (“Foul Play,” “Private Benjamin”), while the daughter is Amy Schumer, 35, whose chosen persona is the big-city girl with hidden depths of insecurity (“Trainwreck”).
"Snatched" is an auspicious return to the cinema for Hawn, a one-time America's-sweetheart type with an Oscar nomination (for 1980's "Private Benjamin"), who hasn't made a movie in 15 years.
It snatches a still-adorable Goldie Hawn, 71, from the jaws of retirement after a 15-year movie drought — reminding us why we cooed over this bubbly funny lady in Private Benjamin, Overboard and The First Wives Club.
In the Wet Hot American Summer tradition, Meloni is off in his own, much funnier little movie.