Two stars. Rated R, for profanity, crude humor and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang
It’s pretty sad when the star of
a film is overwhelmed and out-funnied by her co-stars, and that’s definitely
the case with Snatched.
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| On the run and lost in the Amazonian jungle, with a vengeful kidnapper on their trail, Emily (Amy Schumer, left) and her mother Linda (Goldie Hawn) haven't the faintest idea what to do next. Neither do this tawdry flick's director or writer. |
Amy Schumer is by far the weakest
link. Goldie Hawn, as her mother Linda, is funnier. Bashir Salahuddin, as a
desk-bound U.S. State Department clerk, is much funnier. Joan Cusack, as a
retired special ops agent, darn near steals the show ... and she doesn’t speak a word.
Mind you, Hawn, Salahuddin, Cusack
and a few others are tiny bits of spice in very thin gruel. It’s hard to
believe that Katie Dippold got paid for this miserable excuse for a script,
particularly since it sounds like Schumer ad-libbed all of her dialog (scarcely
an improvement). But, then, Dippold’s previous big-screen solo credit was
2013’s execrable The Heat, so clearly
we shouldn’t have expected better.
Dippold seems to have become the
go-to scripter for today’s two hottest foul-mouthed female comics, which makes
sense; in terms of their big-screen personas, Schumer is basically a smuttier
version of Melissa McCarthy (which is saying quite a lot). Schumer hasn’t yet
met a situation that she couldn’t debase with a vulgar reference to sexual or
bodily functions, and hey: If crude, tasteless potty humor is your cup of tea,
you’re bound to have a good time with this flick.
Not that it features much else
that could be considered entertainment value.
Schumer stars as Emily Middleton,
a useless semi-adult introduced as she’s dumped by her musician boyfriend.
Concerned less about her derailed love life and more about her two
non-refundable tickets to an Ecuadorian tourist trap, Emily rattles
unsuccessfully through her meager list of friends, and finally — as sloppy
sixths or sevenths — persuades her mother to come along.
Such a trip is far outside
Linda’s comfort zone, she being the type of stay-at-home, overly protective
single mother whose idea of excitement is a pottery class. But Emily prevails,
and the two unattached gals are off to paradise.
