Pineapple Express (2008)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Dale Denton	Seth Rogen	½
Saul Silver	James Franco
Red	Danny McBride
Budlofsky	Kevin Corrigan	½
Matheson	Craig Robinson
Ted Jones	Gary Cole
Carol	Rosie Perez
Robert	Ed Begley Jr.

Review

The comedy team of Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have been refreshing the sex comedy subgenre for a few years already, and after the success of 2007's Knocked Up and Superbad, they have now gotten hold of David Gordon Green to direct their latest venture - a stoner comedy slash buddy movie entitled Pineapple Express.

The narrative feels like something Rogen and Goldberg wrote watching Miami Vice and smoking pot, but I don't think they'd mind that assumption or even want us to believe differently. The film as such is staged as the meeting between the American stoner culture of the 2000s and the action-series of the 1980s - evident from Dale Denton's bronze sedan to Ted Jones' slick criminal-style home and the vast amount of automatic guns which never seems to be able to kill anyone. It's rather fun, but not quite, because the screenplay is hit and miss, and the perpetual final third of the film probably was funnier to make than to watch.

Seth Rogen and James Franco are enjoyable comedy talents, with Franco surprising with a winning performance as a kind-hearted junkie. There is a fair share of funny scenes as well, often relating to the film's unconditional embrace of the buddy movie concept, but the pot jokes are beginning to wear out, and the filmmakers' unwillingness to let up eventually deflates the film.