"Without a Paddle"
When three best friends learn of the death of their
fourth, Billy (Anthony Starr), they attend the funeral
and congregate at the one place they all loved as kids
– Billy's tree house. While going through their
boyhood treasures they come across a map that appears
to show the location of the landing site of the
infamous D.B. Cooper. They band together to find his
stolen treasure and journey into the wilds of the
Pacific Northwest only to find themselves up the creek
"Without a Paddle."
Someone must have thought that a wilderness road trip
movie with Seth Green and Matthew Lillard would be
ripe for a slapstick misadventure. Just take the
aforementioned actors, mix in a bunch of wacky
supporting characters, add a string of goofy
circumstances and, voila, you get a fun summer holiday
comedy that everyone will enjoy. I didn't.
Things start off showing the four best friends (as
adults played by Green, Lillard, Dax Shepard and
Anthony Starr as the late Billy) as they grow up
together, graduate school and go their separate ways.
Billy is the go-for-the-gusto adventurer who has
traveled the world, dying in a parasailing accident in
Peru. His friends assemble to salute and say goodbye
to their friend, find the map and head off on an
adventure. Along the way they meet a hostile town
sheriff, two pot-growing mountain men, a rather large
bear, a pair of free-spirited beauties out to save the
forest and a reclusive mystery man.
Okay, there seems to be enough material here to come
up with something funny, say a parody on
"Deliverance," maybe? Nope. What starts out
promisingly enough, especially when Bart the Bear
makes his appearance and carries off fetal-folded Dan
(Green) away as his cub. I even laughed out loud a
couple of times. Then, things go down hill fast with
the painfully manufactured screenplay by Jay Leggett
and Mitch Rouse (from a story by Fred Wolf, Harris
Goldberg and Tom Nursall). The movie-by-committee
story introduces the wild mountain men, Elwood and
Dennis (Ethan Suplee and Abraham Benrubi), as they
menacingly frighten the boys while fishing with
dynamite. The "Deliverance" possibilities jumped to my
mind. Then, the hefty fishermen turn out to be
marijuana-growing bad guys with an arsenal of weapons
that would make a small army proud. Potential parody
becomes a meaningless chase with the bad guys getting
their expected comeuppance in the end. Other
sequences, especially one with hippie chicks Flower
and Butterfly (Rachel Blanchard and Christina Moore),
fall flat in their stupidity.
There is one bright note to "Without a Paddle,"
though. Newcomer Dax Shepard, from MTV's "Punk'd," has
a knack for droll, well-delivered comedy. The young
actor shows a great deal of potential and is the only
good thing about this inane waste of time. Even Burt
Reynolds, nearly unrecognizable, is left to hang out
to dry. Helmer Steven Brill and company owe me two
hours. I give it a D+.
For more Reeling reviews visit www.reelingreviews.com
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laura@reelingreviews.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 38516 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1312555 X-RT-TitleID: 1134891 X-RT-SourceID: 386 X-RT-AuthorID: 1488 X-RT-RatingText: D+
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