Role Models - DVD review

Man cannot live by high culture alone. I like to laugh. Do you like to laugh? Oh, please say you do! I think it's allowed, isn't it? I'm fairly sure I'm allowed to deeply enjoy a comedy gem as much as I'm allowed to savour, say, a biopic of Truman Capote. If I wasn't allowed, I would probably have to start a movie-viewing revolution. I LIKE TO LAUGH, DAMMIT!

Sometimes a mainstream comedy movie comes along that is so well-scripted, engaging and witty that you find yourself recommending it to people, buying the DVD and pushing it into their hands, and refusing to talk to them until they come back with a headful of quotes that you can croon at each other in sing-song.

Sometimes you don't even know the people you're recommending the movie to. Sometimes they're coffee baristas and strangers on trains, puzzled by your altruistic attempts to push a DVD into their bag with your sticky little hands. Sometimes they're cops. Sometimes they're judges. Sometimes they're... you know, cell buddies.

Well, I haven't gone that far. Yet. But I'm definitely recommending this movie to YOU. Because it is funny. Yes, funny!

Oh, I do like a funny movie!

Role Models came out in 2008. It's a miss-matched buddy comedy about two good friends grinding along as soft drink reps. Wild behaviour caused by an emotional break-up leads to Wheeler (Seann William Scott) and Danny (Paul Rudd) being forced to enrol in a child mentor programme to stay out of jail. Sturdy Wings, is a child mentor scheme commandeered by an eccentric played by Jane Lynch (who essentially reprises her glorious performance as sports coach Sue Sylvester in GLEE. Although I think GLEE came after ROLE MODELS).

The children that Danny and Wheeler have been lumped with are a foul-mouthed firecracker (whose mother is training him to be a Proud Little Black Man) and an introverted virgin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse from KICK-ASS) who retains his sanity by waving a rubber sword at live roleplay events where the social politics are fictional yet fierce.

Will Danny and Wheeler resolve their status as no-hopers? Will they bond with their delinquent charges? Will everyone learn something about themselves by the end of the movie? Yes. Probably. But I'm not here to provide plot spoilers. It's not what happens in life, it's how you get there.

In terms of sharp script and engagement, ROLE MODELS is up there with MEAN GIRLS. And we all know what a wonderful job Tina Fey did with that!

So go on. Let me press a virtual copy of ROLE MODELS into your hands. Was the DVD cover a bit sticky? Sorry about that. It's just that I'm so excited.

And let me know what you thought of it. Perhaps we can croon at each other with quotes from our favourite moments...