Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have been writing movies together for a while, and with last year’s This is The End they even branched out to becoming co-directors. If you’ve seen anything that they’ve made together so far, then you pretty much know what to expect from The Interview. It’s an irreverent comedy that’s more concerned with wiener jokes than it is in telling any kind of straight-faced story. It’s pop culturally aware and far more concerned with making references to current trends than it is in creating something that will become an evergreen classic. It’s a trifle, really. A well made and often funny trifle, but a trifle nonetheless. The biggest hurdle it’s likely to face when it comes to pleasing audiences, then, is that its subject matter has thrust it into a global spotlight and built up big expectations around what should have just been a disposable comedy.
In case you somehow missed the controversy, The Interview sees Rogen and James Franco playing an ambitious TV producer and a witless talk show host who manage to land an exclusive interview with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un (Randall Park), and who get recruited by the CIA to use the opportunity as a chance to assassinate the young megalomaniac. Due to the potentially politically charged subject matter, cyberattacks were perpetrated, terrorist threats followed, and the film’s planned release was eventually scrapped in favor of a much smaller theatrical release and a simultaneous VOD rollout that came days later. It’s been a big deal, an international incident that even the President felt the need to comment on, and the way it’s turned watching this movie into an act of protest rather than the minor diversion it was designed to be is likely to earn it some backlash.
All we should really be discussing is whether The Interview works as a comedy though, and in a general way it does. It’s a little slow to get going, but once Rogen and Franco’s characters actually make it into North Korea, things start to pick up and then never let up. Probably the highlight of the film is Franco’s chemistry with Park, as the two play their characters like giddy school girls whenever they get together and the results can be infectious to watch. In general, it’s Franco’s dumb guy act that really keeps this movie from being a stinker, as he’s always best when he’s going big with his performances, and the clueless nature of his character not only allows him to do that here, it also imbues the film with an aggressively empty-headed and lowbrow approach to comedy that feels almost transcendentally appropriate given all of the political hand-wringing its release has caused. Relax, it seems to assure us, movies are supposed to be fun.
