PLOT: After being dumped, a woman (Amy Schumer) takes her paranoid mother (Goldie Hawn) along with her on a trip to Ecuador, only for the pair to fall-in with the wrong man, and wind-up kidnapped by a vicious kingpin.
REVIEW: SNATCHED, which marks Amy Schumer’s second starring turn, following her break-out two years ago in TRAINWRECK, is a solid vehicle for the stand-up turned actress. Having taken the time to find a solid follow-up film has paid off, with the film much funnier than the advance buzz suggests. Unlike a lot of comedies, the best stuff hasn’t been spoiled by the trailers, and the result is a breezy, thoroughly R-rated and raunchy adult comedy that should please Schumer fans, maybe win her some new ones, and pull in some solid coin.
But, more than that, it also marks a serious comeback for Goldie Hawn, who hasn’t made a movie in fifteen years (since 2002’s THE BANGER SISTERS), and proves that the icon hasn’t lost a beat. While the movies she made in the mid-to-late nineties were rather timid if fun (HOUSESITTER opposite Steve Martin was a childhood favorite of mine), in the seventies/eighties she was a comedic force to be reckoned with, pumping out some serious comedy hits like FOUL PLAY, SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES, the great PRIVATE BENJAMIN, PROTOCOL, and the rowdy WILDCATS (which introduced the world to Wesley Snipes & Woody Harrelson). This is a return to that style, in that it’s character-driven, raunchy (her movies were often hard-R) and above all, funny.
She comes pretty close to stealing the show from Schumer as her buttoned-down mom, who spends her days drinking wine in front of the computer hunting down sex offenders, commenting on her daughter’s Facebook, and playing with her (many) cats. She also has a live-in adult son (a scene-stealing Ike Barinholtz) who depends on her for everything. Schumer is top-billed, but this is as much her movie as it is her younger co-star’s.
Schumer, however, manages to hold her own, by ramping up her own sense of slapstick to peak Goldie-levels, never sparing herself the crueler jokes (Schumer’s never been afraid to take pokes at herself), and the result is a somewhat softer part than the edgy TRAINWRECK, which may disappoint some of her die-hards, but shows at least a bit of range (although she’s still playing to type – that’s for sure). Writer Katie Dippold (THE HEAT, GHOSTBUSTERS) and director Jonathan Levine (50/50, THE NIGHT BEFORE) give her some major set pieces, including one of the funniest scenes of the year, where she contends with a tapeworm.
The supporting cast is also top notch, with Wanda Sykes and Joan Cusack as fellow-tourists who get involved in shenanigans, while Christopher Meloni taps into his WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER chops as their would-be savior, who seems like a send-up of Michael Douglas’s soldier of fortune in ROMANCING THE STONE. The only problem with SNATCHED is that the first two acts are so funny, it can’t help but run out of steam in the third act where everything has to be resolved, killing the momentum a bit. It all comes to a bit of a rushed conclusion, as if Levine realized he was losing steam and had to wrap it up as fast as possible, keeping this from really being an A-level, all-the-way through winner.
Even though SNATCHED runs out of gas in the homestretch, it still ranks among the better comedies I’ve seen in a while, which is a nice treat as the genre lately has been in big trouble. It seems that maybe giving an old pro like Hawn and an upstart like Schumer a chance at a big movie was the right way to go, and if they do another, I’m game. And hey, while we’re at it, let’s finally get that PRIVATE BENJAMIN sequel (General Benjamin? Secretary of State Benjamin? President Benjamin?)!