DVD catchup : ROLE MODELS [7/10]; TRIANGLE [6/10]

Published on: March 2nd, 2010

I somehow missed both of these during their UK cinema runs last year; caught up with them after reading positive reports from reliable sources – I was especially keen to do so with Role Models in advance of Cop Out, which reportedly features a particularly sparkling supporting turn from the always-watchable Seann William Scott. 
   In Role Models he's very much front and centre – co-starring with Paul Rudd as a pair of thirtysomething reprobates who, after falling foul of the law, are court-ordered to spend time on a child-mentoring programme. They're assigned to a trash-talking 10-year-old (Bobb'e J. Thompson, amazingly actually 10) and a nerdish devotee of fantasy-roleplay (Superbad's Christopher Mintz-Plasse), with predictably chaotic consequences. Largely improvised - though the script is credited to Rudd, Ken Marino, director David Wain and Timothy Dowling – Role Models is, beneath its raunchy and flip exterior, surprisingly smart and generous-hearted.
   The Tolkien-inflected fantasy-realm/sword-and-sorcery/dress-up stuff gradually takes centre stage, and any fears that it's there solely to be milked for cheap ironic laughs are firmly dispelled by the rousing, rather touching, rather romantic final act. Seldom less than amusing and often pretty hilarious, especially when Rudd and Scott are ding-donging their dialogue back and forth, Role Models tries a little hard for effect on occasion – sacrificing plausibility in the process – but there haven't been many better mainstream Hollywood comedies in the last couple of years.
   This and The Hangover are probably the best to have popped up in British multiplexes during 2009 - can it be a coincidence that Ken Jeong features in a prominent supporting role in both pictures? Probably not. As an effete, imperious "King" in Mintz-Plasse's role-play world, Jeong's one of a handful of turns here who hit the target during their relatively brief screen-time – Jane Lynch's improv gifts likewise elevate her scenes as the ex-drug-addict head of the mentoring programme, while Joe Lo Truglio is great fun as a particularly enthusiastic role-player who's initially irritating but quickly wins us over.

   The cast in low-budget chiller Triangle get rather less to chew on, most of them Aussies working hard to keep up their American accents: though set in (and off) Florida, all the filming was done in Queensland. One sun-dappled coastline looks much like another, of course, and most of the action takes place on a spookily deserted ocean-liner - boarded by the survivors of a sailing trip that falls foul of a sudden and violent electrical storm. 
      Marred by some slightly clunky CGI, what follows is a taut, claustrophobically circular exercise in genre mechanics as our plucky blonde heroine (Melissa George) quickly realises something is very badly amiss. To say any more would be to spoil the structure, suffice to say that it involves a temporal anomaly that's part Twilight Zone, part Doctor Who without the Doctor. What we get isn't strictly "time travel" – but nor is it exactly anything else, and it's to writer-director Smith's credit that he doesn't try to get too clever with his overlapping time-frames and ever-multiplying characters. 
   It isn't giving anything away to say there's no logical explanation or resolution to what goes on – it should be pretty obvious that this is our final destination from before halfway. But Smith - treading water a little, operating at roughly the same level as 2006's gorier, wittier Severance - gets us there with minimum fuss and reasonable efficiency. 
   Talent-spotters should check out the eyecatching performance from Liam Hemsworth – the taller (6'4"), younger (he's 19), even more muscular, similarly-blue-eyed brother of Chris from A Perfect Getaway and Star Trek – as a genial deckhand. With the current vogue for sword-and-sandal epics, the easy-going but outsize and rough-hewn charms of Hemsworth* mean he's well positioned to snap up any loincloth/cheesecake roles rejected by the likes of Channing Tatum or Hemsworth's countryman Sam Worthington. 
    
Neil Young
2nd March 2010

ROLE MODELS : [7/10] : David Wain : US 09 : 99m : {18/28}
TRIANGLE : [6/10] : Christopher Smith : Australia/UK 09 : 99m {15/28}

Both seen on DVD in Sunderland, UK, 1.Mar.10.
Timings (from BBFC) refer to theatrical-release versions..

* postscript, 10th March 2010:
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/entertainment/miley-cyrus-liam-hemsworth-holidaying-down-under_100299863.html