Caffeinated Clint
Like a cheap brand of toilet paper, Greg Mottola’s latest isn’t too hard on the ass (at just 100 mins) but it’s thin plies leave a lot to be desired. Hopefully the talented cast – Zach Galifianakis, Isla Fisher, Gal Gadot and Jon Hamm, all deserving of better material – don’t walk away with too much stuck to their trousers.
The rent was clearly overdue at the Mottola homestead the day Fox sent over the script or the eye-rollingly mediocre laffer. Just a pity the “Superbad” and “AdventureLand” helmer couldn’t have held out a couple more days for something more unique and original – and surprising he didn’t, considering Mottola made a name for himself as the wunderkind behind some of the recent beauties in Netflix’s comedy column – or brought in old buddy Seth Rogen to punch up the laughs.
Featuring a libretto as uninspired as its title, “Keeping up with the Joneses” takes an old, anachronistic comedy template and, well, makes of it an old, anachronistic comedy. Flick fixes on a couple of suburbanites (a newly-thin Galifianakis, Fisher) who quickly discover their exciting, attractive new neighbours (Hamm, Gadot) are spies. Much like the unwelcome aid Joe Pesci provides Riggs and Martaugh in “Lethal Weapon 2”, so too do Galifianakis and Fisher — with just as many explosions, but not even half the laughs.
It is a pity Michael LeSieur’s script isn’t as game as the cast charged with delivering it’s dialogue because the main quartet here are actually quite good- particularly Fisher whose ostensibly picked up some effective physical comedy skills from hubby Sacha Baron Cohen.
As an accident victim will attest, a good cast only helps cloak severe injuries though.
So old-hat and messy, you’ll swear “Keeping Up With the Joneses” was a post-bankruptcy giving from Orion circa 1993.
