Caffeinated Clint
By Brian Orndorf
I’ll admit it: I have little patience for the comedy troupe Broken Lizard. Their brand of irreverence has always registered to me as excruciatingly forced, with pictures such as “Super Troopers,” “Beerfest,” and “Club Dread” coming across not only downright unfunny, but also criminally slapdash, possibly reflecting the obscure origins of the group. “Slammin’ Salmon” is their latest endeavor, featuring a few key changes in backstage responsibility and a reduction in locations. Consider me thunderstruck, but the creative shake-up infuses a fresh comedic drive into the team; “Salmon” is legitimately funny, agreeably cartoonish, and, for the very first time in their mystifying career, focused.
It’s a big night for the Miami restaurant Cleon’s Slammin’ Salmon, run by a former heavyweight champion (Michael Clarke Duncan) with a taste for punishment. Forced to come up with $20,000 to cover a gambling debt for their boss, the wait staff is pushed into a contest, with the server pulling in the most money offered a giant cash prize, while the loser is beaten to a pulp. For manager Rich (Kevin Heffernan), the pressure is on to make the money happen, sending his eclectic staff (including Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, Cobie Smulders, April Bowlby, and Jay Chandrasekhar) off to charm major coin out of the customers, while watching the entire evening teeter on the edge of disaster.
For the previous Broken Lizard pictures, directorial control was handed to Chandrasekhar, who usually highlighted woeful timing and pulled unreasonably broad performances from the troupe to help sell feeble screenplays. Chandrasekhar also helmed the 2005 “Dukes of Hazzard” big-screen mess, further cementing his limited gifts behind the camera. The role of bossman has been turned over to Heffernan for “Salmon,” and he appears more confident and crafty as a director, limiting Broken Lizard’s iffy reach to a single setting for this new comedy, containing the madness inside Cleon’s beloved seafood restaurant.
While food service comedies have come and gone before (most recently in 2005’s “Waiting”), “Salmon” has an agreeable cartoon edge to mesh with the insider restaurant humor, nudged along assertively by Heffernan. The film isn’t a wild deviation from previous Broken Lizard adventures, but there’s a certain merry, buoyant quality to “Salmon” that’s never been permitted to develop in the earlier pictures. The material is nimble and outstandingly fixated on the job at hand, rarely straying away from the central contest plot, which encourages a tighter routine of slapstick and satire. “Salmon” is goofy and quirky, but Heffernan would rather include the larger audience in on the fun, instead of tiresome enigmatic jokes that speak directly to cult audiences. Broken Lizard fans will find much to celebrate here, but there’s a concerted effort to amp up the good-natured tomfoolery, which results in a funnier, fresher movie.
The cast also rises to the occasion, with the ensemble working as a whole to lend staff members their personalities and special interactions. As Connor, the humiliated actor returning to server life, Lemme is ostensibly the straight man of the picture, dryly aware of the madness brewing within the restaurant, and he makes a dependable leading man. I also enjoyed Bowlby as enthused employee Mia, who endures a few horrific facial burnings during her race to the grand prize. Actually, there’s not a misstep in the cast, but the real spitfire of the film is Duncan, who gives a career-best performance as the hulking boxing titan Cleon Salmon, who’s great with a left hook, but an appalling wordsmith (and hates to be reminded of it). Duncan is a scream as the threatening force driving the restaurant chaos, and it’s refreshing to see Broken Lizard take the spotlight off themselves for a change, allowing someone else to sample the crazy.
With the servers growing increasingly drunk, forgetting to take their meds, and swallowing hidden engagement rings, there’s plenty of comedic ground to cover over a frighteningly tight 95 minutes. I laughed throughout “The Slammin’ Salmon,” groaned a bit here and there too, but smiles and Broken Lizard? I’d never thought I’d see the day when the two would meet.
Extras :
Two hilarious commentaries featuring members of ‘Broken Lizard’, a couple of featurettes, and the film’s theatrical trailer.
