Vulgar, irreverent, and hilarious,
The Interview works from start to
finish.
Here’s the setup: James Franco plays the host of a celebrity
talk & gossip show like ‘Entertainment Tonight.’ Seth Rogen plays his director. The show’s successful, both guys are making
good money, and everyone’s happy.
Everyone, that is, except for Franco and Rogen, who want something more
than money and fame: they want respect.
Their opportunity comes in the
form of an invitation to interview Randall Park as Kim Jong Un. Kim, as it happens, is a big fan. They jump at the chance, and the CIA jumps at
the chance to recruit them to assassinate the North Korean dictator. Hijinks ensue.
I’ve been hard on Franco for
performances such as the one he gave in Oz the Great and Powerful. Here,
however, he’s spot on. He plays his
character as a charming, well-meaning idiot, and there’s something so genuine
about the performance that it makes for a comically sympathetic character. Rogen’s the straight man, the smart guy who
sees the angles and spends most of the film in shock at just how screwed he and
his partner are. It’s a fine comic
pairing, and helps to keep the tension high even as the pile one on top of the
other.
And the gags? They work.
They work because we buy Franco and Rogen’s chemistry, we buy the film’s
exaggerated artificiality, and we buy Park’s performance as a man who only seems
a fool because he’s so clever.
This is just a very well made
comedy, one that deserves to be seen. I
loved The Interview.
