Movie No. 16: "The Pineapple Express"

This was one of my most anticipated movies of the year, if only for the curiousity factor. David Gordon Green, director of mostly somber, lyrical, flowing films like "All the Real Girls" and "Undertow" taking on a project from the Apatow gang. I firmly believed that this film was going to be absolute genius or a complete disaster. Turns out I was wrong, although it definitely had aspects of both.

Apatow regular and the film's co-screenwriter Seth Rogan plays Dale Denton, a process server stuck in suspended adolescence, complete with a high school-age girlfriend. The two great loves of his life are talk radio and marijuana.

It's the latter that leads him to the home of Saul Silver (James Franco), a perpetually baked drug dealer. Excuse me, pot dealer (he takes offense when people think he sells the harder stuff). Saul might be a bit too clingy for Dale's taste, but he has good connections, through which he's managed to acquire Pineapple Express, a variety of marijuana so rare, Saul's the only one in the city selling it.

That, however, turns out to be a bad thing when Dale witnesses a corrupt cop and a drug kingpin (Rosie Perez and Gary Cole) kill a rival dealer. He tosses his marijuana cigarette out of the car window and races off before realizing that it can be traced straight back to Saul -- and him. From there, the pair set out on a paranoia and pot-fueled race to stay ahead of the drug dealers.

There's a lot to like here. First, like most of the Apatow gang's films, it is often very funny. Both the smaller asides and the larger set pieces usually work, especially what might be the funniest car chase since "Blues Brothers." And Green manages to fit in a few grace notes, a couple quiet moments to let you know he's still there.

Perhaps the main reason the film works, though, is the chemistry between Rogan and Franco, who is nearly unrecognizable as lonely, perpetually out of it dealer. They play off each other so well it is almost impossible not to get swept along for the ride.

Unfortunately, Green didn't have a heavy enough hand to reign in another typical Apatow trademark: excess. Sometimes more isn't more, and some more restraint could have been used in a rather over-the-top violent final sequence. More also isn't more when it comes to Danny McBride, who goes rather over-the-top as a drug middle-man. While Franco and Rogan bring a natural feel to their characters, McBride just seems to constantly be trying too hard for a laugh rather than letting them come naturally.

While these flaws keep it from being the bizarre masterpiece I was hoping for, they don't kill off all that is good about it. "The Pineapple Express" might have been a bit of a disappointment, but I still had a heck of a time watching it.

B