Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Movies I Like #5: Hot Rod

Last week while I was making dinner, I needed something to watch while my dinner was cooking. Looking through the cable channels I noticed that "Hot Rod" was starting up. Realizing I never seen this before, I decided to give it a shot and boy am I glad I did.

In case you don't know, "Hot Rod" stars SNL cast member Andy Samburg and features his friends, who all make up "The Lonely Island". They often do those cool songs featured on SNL, like "Dick in a Box" or "I'm On A Boat" (my personal favorite.) The credits say it was written by Pam Brady, the one female writer from "South Park" but I suspect Andy and his friends had a hand in writing as well cause the humor is the same as the "SNL Digital Shorts".

But the plot I believe Pam Brady came up with. She's the same person that wrote "Hamlet 2", another movie with a crazy ass plot. The plot of "Hot Rod" is like this:

Andy is Rod, a local stuntman who wants to earn the respect of his stepfather Frank (Played by Ian McShane, the dude from "Deadwood") and the only way to do that: kick Frank's ass. Rod isn't able to do so, so Frank treats Rod...well not so well. Rod then finds out, after a stunt at a pool didn't go so good, that Frank suddenly has an issue with his heart and they'll need $50,000 for a new one, money they don't have. Realizing that he can't kick the ass of a sick guy, Rod decides to raise the money himself to get Frank a new heart...so he can kick his ass.

From that point on, the movie is just set on Random, with Rod and his friends (Bill Hader, the ammunitions expert guy from "Tropic Thunder", the skinny dude from "The Lonely Island", and the hot chick from "Wedding Crashers". Yeah, I don't know their real names, so sue me.) just going around doing stunts and raising money.

The interesting thing is the entire movie feels like it's a parody of something but I don't know what it would be. There's the "Footloose" inspired fight dancing scene and the part towards the end where hot chick from "Wedding Crashers" breaks up with her jerk of a boyfriend, played by Will Arnett, and all Will does is stand by his car, shouting "BABE! BAAAABEE!! AW BABE!! BABE!!!! BABE!!" for almost five minutes straight.

Looking on Youtube, I found another video compilation of some of the best stuff from the movie. The last bit is literally the ending of the movie so there are spoilers, if you care about that kind of thing.



But the entire movie, in my opinion, is funny and is definately worth checking out.

Cool beans!
-Jason

1 comment:

Reel Whore said...

I loved Hot Rod! Such a ridiculously funny film. Loved the dancing in the woods and in the parking lot, but Richardson was the most inspired and hilarious in his few scenes.

If folks haven't seen this, they are seriously missing out.