Rating: 4 Pulses

Rated R

When I went to see Role Models, I was expecting a movie where several people who had been funny separately before were slung together, creating a movie that was not as funny as the originals, but worth a chuckle or two on a gloomy Sunday afternoon.

But, I was pleasantly surprised. The tale of two energy drink company employees’ falling from grace and doing mandatory community service with a motley cast of youths was quirky, endearing and hilarious, with a lot of original touches, or at least enough dirty language to keep the laughs rolling in.

Rudd has had crowds laughing since 1995’s Clueless and made me an eternal fan with 2001’s Wet Hot American Summer, and Scott is probably most memorable for his party antics in the American Pie series. Rudd’s dry humor and Scott’s raucous, slightly stupid, high jinks complement each other very well.

Young actor Bobb’e J. Thompson is Ronnie, Wheeler’s (Scott) mentee, a boobie obsessed youngster, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (possibly better known as McLovin) is a cape wearing kid obsessed with his local LAIRD group (a version of live action role play) and disenchanted, recently dumped Danny (Rudd) gets to be his mentor.

At some points, the plot becomes predictable, but the screw-ups are what have us laughing, well, the screw-ups and a constant barrage of boob and dick jokes, and the occasional bout of grown men beating each other with foam weapons.

It’s also nice to be seeing so much of Elizabeth Banks (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Zack and Miri Make a Porno) this year, and Jane Lynch is a perfect piece of awkward humor as Sturdy Wings’ founder Gayle.

See Role Models for an adult comedy with some smart twists but a relatively predictable plot. The language is so profane that it would take some serious efforts on the part of an audio specialist to ever make it palatable for TBS or any other station that likes to run watered-down versions of films, but that’s where I see it going in the future?definitely the best release in the past few weeks.