Review

Snatched

When her would-be rock star boyfriend dumps her on the eve of an exotic vacation, impetuous Emily Middleton (Amy Schumer) persuades her ultra-cautious mother to accompany her on the trip. Jonathan Levine’s comedy Snatched details the bad things that ensue.
When her would-be rock star boyfriend dumps her on the eve of an exotic vacation, impetuous Emily Middleton (Amy Schumer) persuades her ultra-cautious mother to accompany her on the trip. Jonathan Levine’s comedy Snatched details the bad things that ensue.

As anyone who has seen Amy Schumer's stand-up work, her cable series Inside Amy Schumer or Trainwreck can tell you, the girl has a potty mouth.

To be fair, Schumer and her cohorts in Snatched have managed to find a few body orifices that other filmmakers haven't tried to mine for comic potential. They also manage to slip in genuine flashes of wit and even insight between bursts of profanity and unpleasant discharges.

Snatched

83 Cast: Amy Schumer, Goldie Hawn, Ike Barinholtz, Wanda Sykes, Joan Cusack, Christopher Meloni, Tom Bateman, Bashir Salahuddin, Oscar Jaenada, Randall Park, Al Madrigal

Director: Jonathan Levine

Rating: R, for crude sexual content, brief nudity, and language throughout

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

As with Trainwreck, Schumer plays yet another grown woman whose maturity level is below that of most teens, or even 'tweens. Her Emily Middleton has reached her mid-30s without the ability to hold a job or reach decisions that don't put her in financial peril.

One potentially disastrous choice is buying two nonrefundable tickets to Ecuador. Emily has made the false assumption that her musician boyfriend (Randall Park) is going to take her along on his ride to fame and fortune.

This is a foolish assumption for a couple of reasons: First, he's a struggling musician in a saturated market. Second, he openly boasts to her about all the physical gratification he expects on the road. Instead of going along with her fantasy, he dumps her.

Terrified of drinking booze in the sun on her own in a foreign country, Emily badgers her mother, Linda (Goldie Hawn), to join her. Linda practically wears tents when she walks outdoors for fear of the sun and would rather stay at home with her equally agoraphobic son (Ike Barinholtz) and her legion of cats.

When the two arrive in Ecuador, Emily meets a charming fellow (Tom Bateman) with an English accent who promises them a scenic tour. Instead, the two awaken in a dingy cell with a $100,000 ransom on their heads.

Because Emily and Linda have a knack for getting themselves and others into unpredictably bizarre situations, it's easy to shed a few tears for their main captor Morgado (Oscar Jaenada). Even though he's cruel, vindictive, greedy and homicidal, keeping tabs on his prisoners or even staying alive makes the ransom seem paltry.

Before you can say O. Henry or The Ransom of Red Chief, screenwriter Katie Dippold (Parks and Recreation, Paul Feig's Ghostbusters and The Heat) comes up with just enough surprising ways for Emily and Linda to get in and out of trouble to make Snatched more than a cascade of bodily fluids.

It's nice to see Hawn playing a role her own age who isn't a caricature. Linda has some pronounced quirks, but unlike the character Hawn played in First Wives Club, her current role isn't someone trying in vain to match an unfair standard of beauty. Dippold gently pokes fun at some of the double standards that make guys feel they're entitled to insult women who don't look like Greek goddesses.

Emily and Linda also encounter some equally juicy characters on their way to safety. Wanda Sykes is a scream as a tourist who might be a little too aware of the kidnap and ransom risks, while Joan Cusack plays her friend who has trouble forgetting she's retired from Special Forces. Cusack gets extra points for playing the role without dialogue (you'll have to see to know why).

Director Jonathan Levine actually managed to find humorous situations involving cancer in 50/50, so making kidnapping and spitting funny isn't that much of a stretch for him. The real test of his and Schumer's talent might be to see if they can get laughs out of something that doesn't involve a dysfunctional digestive tract.

MovieStyle on 05/12/2017

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