Review of “Hot Rod”
I must say that I didn’t have high hopes for Hot Rod, the latest in a patchy series of comedies made over the years by alumni from the long-running Saturday Night Live television show (think Wayne’s World and The Coneheads). SNL has been running for thirty years and has seen some of America’s finest comedians come through its doors at NBC’s New York studio: Dan Aykroyd, Jim Belushi, Jim Carrey, Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal, Will Ferrell – the list goes on. The show’s founder Lorne Michaels has produced many of the comedy films spun off from the show, and Hot Rod is the latest, starring two current SNL cast members: Bill Hader and Andy Samberg. Although the film suffers from a sketch-like nature, there is something fresh going on and it might well get over the comedy line for those who like their laughs wacky and unpredictable.
Samberg plays Rod Kimble, who lives with his mum (Sissy Spacek) and stepfather (Ian McShane). Rod has a father-figure problem. He wants to be a stunt man like his natural dad (dead) and wants some respect from his step dad (dying), but neither of these things looks like becoming remotely possible. Although enthusiastic and supported by a dedicated crew including mechanic Dave (Bill Hader) and nerdy manager Kevin (Jorma Taccone), Rod is not hot at all. He’s another one of those nearly-thirty adolescents, for whom stress is working out where to hang out. But then Rod gets a brainwave – he will jump fourteen buses on his motorbike to raise money for his stepfather’s heart transplant. This way he can get respect and be a famous stunt man (oh, and win the heart of the girl he likes).
The comedy comes in strange waves: one minute parody (a take off of Kevin Bacon’s dancing sequence in Footloose), the next self-mocking or slapstick. It avoids the truly low-brow gross-out and manages to make the hapless Rod likeable in a kind of Jackass-meets-Borat way. Much of the credit for this must go to writer Pam Brady, who ’s written several episodes of Southpark and who helped out with the hilarious feature comedy Team America. She’s clearly brought something a little more intelligent and interesting to the humour, but not enough to save its lack of cohesion from both critical and box-office drubbing in the USA.
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