Hot Rod (2007)

Overall rating from 1 to 100: 52

O Masterpiece (95-100)
O Excellent (75-94)
O Good video rental (60-74)
X Merely OK (50-59)
O Pure mediocrity (30-49)
O Medusa: don't watch (1-29)

Review by Jason Pyles / August 11, 2007

Something remarkable happens toward the end of “Hot Rod.” At one point, as part of a fundraiser, stuntman Rod Kimble shows a film of his homespun stunts to his local townspeople in a movie theater. I suspected the movie was about to make a joke of itself, just as “The Simpsons Movie” does, where it ridicules its audience by depicting a similarly displeased group of people who paid to see the stuntman on the big screen.

Not so. Instead, the movie audience within the movie begins to laugh at what they’re watching, which had a magical affect on my theater’s real group of spectators: From that point on, we begin to laugh, too. Perhaps the movie gets funnier after that point. Perhaps we were just broken down from the bludgeoning of stupidity. Or maybe the onscreen audience had some psychological affect on us. In any case, it’s an interesting coincidence.

I don’t feel the same pressure to “get the word out” with movies like “Hot Rod.” The type of people who will love a movie like this are the ones who buy the tickets. The type of people who know better don’t go in the first place.

Rod Kimble (Andy Samberg) has two ambitions: being a world-class stuntman and gaining the respect and recognition from his stepfather by beating him in a fight. But Kimble has three problems: He’s not a very good stuntman. He can’t beat his stepfather in a fight. And the stepfather’s ticker needs to be replaced, or else he’ll die soon and remain “the undefeated champ.”

The only way to overcome each of these obstacles is to perform the death-defying feat of ramping over 15 school buses (one more than Evel Knievel) at a fundraising spectacle designed to collect enough money to cover the stepfather’s heart transplant. Once Ron’s stepfather has a new heart, he plans to gain his respect by beating him up.

This is what you’re looking at experiencing by going to see this movie. But I must admit, later in the movie, I did laugh quite a bit. Andy Samberg’s Rod Kimble ultimately seems to be an attempt at blending a typical Adam Sandler character with a Jon Heder character.

There are four types of comedies by my reckoning: the clever comedy, the abstract comedy, the “so stupid it hurts” comedy, and the “so stupid it’s funny” comedy. “Hot Rod” falls under the last category. “Little Miss Sunshine” (2006) is a clever comedy. “Napoleon Dynamite” (2004) is an abstract comedy. “Delta Farce” (2007) is a very painful “so stupid it hurts” comedy. (By the way, never see “Delta Farce.”)

My biggest criticism of “Hot Rod” is something that most movies are guilty of, and that’s showing all of the funniest parts in the trailer. But “Hot Rod” is especially guilty. During the first 10 minutes, I thought the projectionist was mistakenly playing the trailer reel. The best stunt mishaps, which are revealed in said trailer, would have gotten the biggest laughs during screenings. But hey, I guess you have to get people into the theater somehow. Perhaps “Hot Rod” could have been a charity fundraiser for Paramount Pictures and SNL Films.

Directed by Akiva Schaffer
Andy Samberg / Isla Fisher / Ian McShane
88 min. Comedy
MPAA: PG-13 (for crude humor, language, some comic drug-related and violent content)

Copyright 2007.
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