We're The Millers: Movie Review

We're The Millers: Movie Review

Cast: Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Will Poulter, Emma Roberts, Ed Helms
Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber

Back to the world of the road trip we go with this latest R-rated comedy to hit the multiplexes.

Former Saturday Night Live veteran Jason Sudeikis stars as veteran low-level pot dealer David. Ever since high school, he's been dealing dope and when he's robbed, he finds himself in debt to his dealer Brad (Hangover star Ed Helms).

In order to pay off the debt, David's asked to move a "smidge" of weed across the border of Mexico into the USA - but realising that he'd attract the attention of the police, he co-opts himself a fake family from within his building.

There's home alone kid Kenny (Will Poulter), stripper and potential love interest Rose (Jennifer Aniston) and street teen Casey (Emma Roberts) - and so off they go in the RV, on the American vacation and off to make some money.

Inevitably though, it doesn't quite go according to plan....

Road trip comedies are films done to death already.

However, We're The Millers proves to be a relatively entertaining, if occasionally uneven entry, into an already crowded genre.

It succeeds largely on the charm and affability of its leads; Sudeikis and Aniston have good comic chemistry together as the drug dealer and stripper who share a love / hate relationship. Will (Son of Rambow) Poulter gets a good share of the laughs as the slightly dumb, slightly awkward teen and Roberts is perhaps the only one who feels a little underwritten as the "daughter" of the group. Their feeling real makes the family bond work without feeling forced.

Of course, all they all want really is a family with each of them lacking it in their lives in some form or other - which is what leads to an inevitably mushy and rather sickly sentimental and utterly predictable ending that sticks in your craw.

The R-rated awkward laughs are sprinkled throughout and Thurber directs them with a taut eye that means they don't feel drawn out and pointless like some other recent entries of a similar ilk. Sure, there's gross out moments and an icky kiss-fest but they're peppered throughout and relatively snappy. It has to be said though that there could potentially be an argument for wanting more laughs or shortening the run time a little.

Much will be made of Aniston's warehouse strip tease in which she grooves and gyrates in the manner of a woman striking a blow in Hollywood for those over 40. Sure, it's a bit saucy but it's also self referential too with Sudeikis looking down the barrel of the camera at that point, rather knowingly. Since Horrible Bosses, Aniston's been determined to permanently bench her good girl image, so this is perhaps another notch in that quest.

Outside of the Millers, most of the other characters are stereotypes - the Mexican drug dealer, the Mexican hoodlum and The Office and Hangover's Ed Helms playing a little OTT as the kingpin but it's due to the grounded characters and warmth of the leads that this doesn't tonally grate too much. Kathryn Hahn and Parks and Recreation's Nick Offerman add a bit as a fellow RV family along for the journey too.

All in all, like any road trips, you hit a few speed bumps along the way but the destination is worth taking the journey for. This all sounds like faint praise for the film, and while the story's a little thin and the gags a little blander than what you may be used to, We're The Millers generally succeeds as a piece of throwaway entertainment.

Oh, and don't leave your seat too quickly, as there's a gag reel with something very amusing directed at Jennifer Aniston...

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