So a formulaic comedy about two guys who are opposite personality types working a job together and forced to spend time together getting in to trouble and somehow being paired up with cartoonish children as a punishment sounds like fun to you?

Go see Role Models.

In spite of being the most predictable storyline you can ever imagine, it actually is an extremely enjoyable hour and a half.

The characters start off as caricatures and end up becoming moderately endearing and way deeper and multifaceted than one could have ever expected at the beginning of the movie.
While the plot is nothing special, the dialogue and the jokes carry the viewer through what ends up being riotously funny at points and solidly amusing throughout. The creative team (and much of the secondary acting team) behind this have roots with the classic sketch comedy show The State (if you don't know The State, you probably were not a teenager or twentysomething in the early 90's). Subtle sarcasm and overt gags mix together well throughout the movie as the humor and dialogue rescue a film that wanted to fail from the cliched beginning.

The actors are the other strong point that makes you glad you spent your 10.25 (plus soda and pretzel-bite money). Paul Rudd is always amusing. Seann William Scott is still playing Stiffler, but somehow I'm not tired of it in this role. Both of the lead child actors nail the roles so well that you really believe they are real kids and start to empathize with them as they hit the obvious rough times in the beginning and near the end of the movie.

Overall, Role Models gets a B for rescuing this film from itself.

--John Berry, Online Editor--