Review: ‘Joy Ride’ (2023), starring Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu and Sabrina Wu

July 6, 2023

by Carla Hay

Stephanie Hsu, Sherry Cola, Ashley Park and Sabrina Wu in “Joy Ride” (Photo by Ed Araquel/Lionsgate)

“Joy Ride” (2023)

Directed by Adele Lim

Some language in Mandarin and Korean with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States, China, South Korea and France, the comedy film “Joy Ride” features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with some white people and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Four Asian American women in their late 20s have misadventures in China, where one of the women is on a business trip and tries to find her birth mother. 

Culture Audience: “Joy Ride” will appeal primarily to people who can tolerate raunchy comedies about the ups and downs of friendships.

Sabrina Wu, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu and Ashley Park in “Joy Ride” (Photo by Ed Araquel/Lionsgate)

“Joy Ride” earns its reputation for being a movie for “mature audiences only.” Some of the fantasy elements of this comedy don’t work very well, but the snappy dialogue and the chemistry between the cast members make “Joy Ride” highly entertaining to watch. The movie recycles some elements from other comedy films about friends on a misadventurous trip, such as 2009’s “The Hangover,” 2011’s “Bridesmaids” and 2017’s “Girls Trip.” However, “Joy Ride” has plenty of originality on its own, including a story told from an Asian American female perspective.

Directed by Adele Lim, “Joy Ride” was written by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao. Lim, Chevapravatdumrong and Hsiao are also three of the producers of “Joy Ride,” which had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film & TV Festival. There’s a lot of authenticity in “Joy Ride” that has to do with the fact that Asian American women are principal leaders on the creative team in this movie that is centered on Asian American women. All four of the main characters in “Joy Ride” are fully formed human beings and not hollow stereotypes, although there are some clichés in certain situations that are played for laughs.

Too often, Asian women are stereotyped in movies as subservient or tragic figures. “Joy Ride” is a giant and defiant middle finger to those stereotypes. At its core, “Joy Ride” (which is Lim’s feature-film directorial debut) is about true friendship, honesty, and being comfortable with one’s own identity. “Joy Ride” is far from being preachy, but it does offer some meaningful life lessons amid all the vulgarity and extreme comedy.

The beginning of “Joy Ride” shows how the friendship started between the two characters whose relationship gets the most screen time in the movie: Audrey Sullivan and Lolo Chen. They both met when they were 5 years old. Audrey’s family moved to the town of White Hills, Washington (a Seattle suburb), where Lolo and her family live have lived for a number of years. (Lennon Yee has the role Audrey at age 5, while Belle Zhang has the role of Lolo at age 5.) Audrey and Lolo are each the only child of their parents.

Audrey was adopted as a baby from China by a white married couple named Mary Sullivan (played by Annie Mumolo) and Joe Sullivan (played by David Denman), who are loving and attentive but not completely in touch with giving Audrey enough exposure to her Asian heritage. Audrey has lived in predominantly white areas her entire life. Lolo’s parents are Jenny Chen (played by Debbie Fan) and Wey Chen (played by Kenneth Liu), who are Chinese immigrants who own and operate a Chinese-food restaurant.

When they meet at 5 years old, Audrey is obedient and shy. Lolo is rebellious and outspoken. During Audrey’s first day at her new school, she is bullied by some white boys for being Asian. Lolo’s reaction is to punch the boy who is the cruelest to Audrey. It sets the tone for the friendship between Audrey and Lolo, who are the only Asian girls in their neighbhorhood. (In flashbacks, Isla Rose Hall has the role Audrey at age 12, while Chloe Pun has the role of Lolo at age 12.)

Audrey and Lolo are so close, they have a sisterly friendship. Their personalities stay the same into adulthood, except Audrey becomes more confident as an adult. The majority of “Joy Ride” shows Audrey (played by Ashley Park) and Lolo (played by Sherry Cola) when they are both 29 years old.

Audrey has grown up to be a responsible and successful corporate attorney at a law firm where she is the only Asian attorney. The movie makes a point of showing that almost every attorney at the firm is a white man. Audrey, who is accustomed to being around mostly white people, does what she can to fit in at this male-dominated law firm, including playing tennis with her male colleagues.

Lolo is a struggling artist whose specialty is making kitschy erotic art. For example, one of her art displays is a plastic recreation of her playground from her childhood, but with things such as a penis-shaped slide. An illustration she has made of a flower is supposed to resemble a vagina. It’s mentioned several times in the movie that Lolo is a sexually fluid “free spirit” who indulges in drugs and believes in having an unrestricted “sex-positive” lifestyle.

Audrey is under pressure because she is about to go on a business trip to Beijing, China, where she is expected to close a deal with an important potential client, who is a wealthy Chinese businessman named Chao Lin. If she closes this deal, it could mean a possible promotion for Audrey, who wants to become a partner in this law firm. Audrey’s boss Frank (played by Timothy Simons) is casually condescending in his racial attitudes and goes overboard in trying to appear like he’s politically “woke,” even though it’s obvious he dislikes everything that has to do with being politically correct.

Audrey’s boss and her other colleagues expect Audrey to have some kind of special advantage in closing the deal, just because she is Asian. Audrey doesn’t know how to speak Mandarin, but she pretends that she does because she wants the people at her law firm to think that she’s well-educated about China and in touch with her Chinese roots. “Joy Ride” has constant themes about how pretending to be someone you’re not can ending up backfiring in damaging ways.

Audrey and Lolo decide to go on this business trip together, partially because Lolo can speak Mandarin, and partially because Lolo just wants to get away from her life in the U.S. for a while. Lolo plans to visit family members in China. Lolo also says that she plans to hook up with basketball star Baron Davis (playing a version of himself), who will be in Beijing at the same time because he’s playing for a Chinese basketball team. Lolo is addicted to social media and does a lot of livestreaming throughout the trip.

Even though Audrey insists that this trip is mainly going to be business for her, there would be no “Joy Ride” movie if that turned out to be true. Audrey also has plans to visit her college best friend/roommate Katherine, nicknamed Kat (played by Stephanie Hsu), a Chinese American who has become a famous movie/TV actress in China. Throughout the movie, Lolo and Kat have a rivalry where they try to prove who is Audrey’s “real” best friend. It’s very reminiscent of the friendship rivalries that were in “Bridesmaids” and “Girls Trip.”

One person whom Audrey does not want to visit in China is her biological/birth mother, who was an unwed teenager when she gave Audrey up for adoption. The only thing that Audrey has of her mother is a photo of her mother holding Audrey as a newborn baby. Lolo can read Mandarin and notices that the back of the photo has the name of the adoption agency and the name of Audrey’s birth mother.

Before leaving for the trip, Lolo offered to go with Audrey to the adoption agency in China to try to find Audrey’s birth mother. It’s an offer that Audrey declined because Audrey says she’s happy with her adoptive parents and doesn’t want any more parents. Lolo is surprised and disappointed, because when they were children, Audrey used to talk a lot about the two of them going to China to find Audrey’s birth mother.

Lolo waits until she and Audrey are at the airport to tell her that someone else is going with them on this trip: Lolo’s socially awkward and eccentric cousin Deadeye (played by Sabrina Wu), who is androgynous, childlike, and obsessed with K-pop music. (In real life, Wu is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns.) Later in the movie, Deadeye reveals that her real name is Vanessa. Audrey, who has a tendency to be elitist, is temporarily upset by Deadeye going on this trip because she doesn’t want Deadeye to be a social burden.

Upon arriving in China, one of the first things that Audrey, Lolo and Deadeye do is visit Kat while she’s working on her soap opera TV series called “The Emperor’s Daughter.” Kat is the star of the show. And she’s engaged to her leading man: a tall and handsome actor named Clarence (played Desmond Chiam), who is originally from Australia. Clarence (who is a strict Christian) and Kat have been dating each other for three years.

One of the biggest comedy gags in “Joy Ride” is that Kat has a wild past that she has not revealed to religious Clarence, who doesn’t believe in having sex outside of marriage. Kat has been pretending to have the same religious beliefs as Clarence, who insists that they abstain from having sexual intercourse or any other intimate sexual activity with each other until they are married. Audrey knows about Kat’s past promiscuity but is keeping it a secret from Clarence because it’s not Audrey’s place to tell him. Clarence and Kat are very affectionate with each other, but their affection doesn’t go past passionate kissing.

Not surprisingly, there are immediate conflicts between Lolo and Kat, in their competition to outdo each other as “Audrey’s best friend.” Lolo doesn’t respect Kat because she thinks Kat is a phony. Kat doesn’t respect Lolo because she think Lolo is a failed artist. The sniping between these two women is one of the many problems that occur during this trip. Audrey doesn’t do anything to pit Lolo and Kat against each other, but Audrey doesn’t adequately deal with this rivalry problem either.

Audrey’s first meeting with Chao Lin, also known as Mr. Chao (played by Ronny Chieng), takes place at a nightclub. Because of this casual setting, Audrey has also invited Lolo, Kat and Deadeye to go to the nightclub with her. Audrey also needs Lolo and Kat there because they can speak Mandarin. Audrey has been told in advance that Mr. Chao will only speak in Mandarin to her. It turns out he actually knows English and was just testing Audrey.

Of course, this nightclub meeting is the start of even more problems. Mr. Chao and his all-male group of colleagues insist that anyone they do business with has to partake in their business customs, which includes binge drinking. Audrey feels obliged to go along. (And you know what that means in a comedy where a drunk person inevitably gets sick.) Lolo, Kat and Deadeye also join in on this binge drinking.

Mr. Chao knows that Audrey was adopted by white American parents, but he expects Audrey to know who her biological family is, in order for him to agree to the deal. “If you don’t know where you come from,” he says to Audrey, “how do you know where you’re going?” Lolo spontaneously lies and tells Mr. Chao that Audrey keeps in touch with Audrey’s birth mother. Mr. Chao then insists that Audrey’s birth mother and Audrey go to a party that Mr. Chao will be having in the near future.

Audrey is angry at Lolo for blurting out the lie to Mr. Chao, because finding Audrey’s birth mother will take time away from the other things that Audrey wanted to do on this trip. It won’t be the last time that Lolo’s impulsiveness causes some issues in this group. Caught in a lie, Audrey and her three companions then go on a quest to find Audrey’s birth mother, with the hope that the reunion will go well and that Audrey’s birth mother will want to go to the party. (It’s a lot to expect, but stranger things have happened in real life.)

Along the way, the quartet will get caught up in some wacky situations, including being stuck in a train car with a drug dealer named Jess (played by Meredith Hagner), right at the moment that the train security staffers are patrolling the aisles and will soon arrive at their train car to search their luggage for drugs, weapons or other contraband. Part of the comedy is that Audrey is so sheltered, she doesn’t figure out until it’s too late that Jess is a drug dealer, because Jess appears to be an innocent-looking young American woman. A quick plan is put into action that is exactly what you think it might be, in order to hide the drugs that Jess brought on the train.

The four travelers also visit Lolo’s large group of relatives who are all gathered in one house, for a family reunion. This clan also includes (cliché alert) a feisty grandmother named Nei Nei Chen (played by Lori Tan Chinn), who’s not afraid of giving her unfiltered opinions. Three of the four women also have separate sexual encounters with men on Baron’s basketball team, including Baron; Todd (played by Alexander Hodge), who knows Kat from a previous encounter; and Kenny (played by Chris Pang) and Arvind (played by Rohain Arora), who meet Audrey at a hotel bar.

“Joy Ride” doesn’t shy away from jokes and commentary about race relations, white supremacist racism and the prejudices that Asian people have against each other. In an airport scene, Deadeye gives a judgmental rundown of ethnic stereotypes, based on the travelers being from Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea or Japan. The movie also shows how some Chinese people are prejudiced aganst Koreans because they think that Koreans ar a lower class of Asian people than Chinese people.

Audrey has some self-esteem issues related to her racial identity because, as she says at one point in the movie, she’s not white enough to fit in with white people and she’s not Asian enough to fit in with Asian people. Deadeye was bullied as a child and still struggles with finding people who fully accept her. It’s mentioned several times in the movie that most of Deadeye’s “friends” are people she only knows through online activities.

The movie has a few dream-like sequences that are whimsical but don’t really fit the harder edges of this comedy. One of these sequences is styled like a music video, when Audrey, Lolo, Kat and Deadeye pretend to be new K-pop stars, in order to board a private jet to South Korea without passports. Because, yes, “Joy Ride” has the travel comedy cliché of stolen luggage and stolen passports.

“Joy Ride” has a few surprises, including something that one of the women finds out, which leads to a sentimental, tearjerking moment in the film. Some viewers might expect “Joy Ride” to be all raunchy fun, but the movie handles this balance of zany comedy and serious drama in a mostly skillful way. The temporary shifts in the movie’s tone bring “Joy Ride” back down to earth to show that these four women are not caricatures for the sake of comedy.

Because “Joy Ride” has a lot to do with the friendship between Audrey and Lolo, the cast members who get to show the most emotional range in the movie are Park and Cola. Park in particular rises to the occasion by adeptly portraying all aspects of these emotions. Cola also does quite well in her role as Lolo, although the movie could have done a little more to show more of Lolo’s life that doesn’t involve her friendship with Audrey.

Hsu is hilarious as pampered diva actress Kat, who is fixated on what other people think about her. Wu also has moments to shine in scenes where Deadeye starts to come out of her introverted shell. Of the supporting cast members in “Joy Ride,” Chiam stands out with some very good comedic timing in portraying Kat’s hunky and pious fiancé Clarence, who upends the stereotype that physically attractive and famous actors are sex-crazed cheaters.

Even though “Joy Ride” uses many of the same formulas that are found in other travel comedy films, there are so many other things about the movie that are rarely seen in American-made comedy films. “Joy Ride” director Lim (who wrote the 2018 smash hit “Crazy Rich Asians”) gives a brisk and lively pace to the movie, even though some viewers might think that too much is crammed into the short trip that’s depicted in “Joy Ride.” Parts of “Joy Ride” do seem overstuffed, but what’s in the movie overall is worth unpacking.

Lionsgate will release “Joy Ride” in U.S. cinemas on July 7, 2023.

Review: ‘Confess, Fletch,’ starring Jon Hamm

September 18, 2022

by Carla Hay

Jon Hamm in “Confess, Fletch” (Photo courtesy of Miramax/Paramount Pictures)

“Confess, Fletch”

Directed by Greg Mottola

Some language in Italian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Boston, Rome, and Central America, the comedy film “Confess, Fletch” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: In his first night at a rented vacation townhouse in Boston, a freelance journalist finds a murdered woman in the living room, he becomes a prime suspect in her murder, and he annoys the police by trying to solve the murder himself.

Culture Audience: “Confess, Fletch” will appeal mainly to people who are star Jon Hamm and fans of author Gregory Mcdonald’s “Fletch” mystery novel series and murder mystery comedies that have wisecracking characters.

Ayden Mayeri and Roy Wood Jr. in “Confess, Fletch” (Photo courtesy of Miramax/Paramount Pictures)

Thanks to a very talented cast, the comedy film “Confess, Fletch” is an adequately entertaining story that should satisfy fans of murder mysteries and the book on which this movie is based. Jon Hamm’s skill for dry wit holds everything together. Without his great sense of comedic timing, the protagonist of “Confess, Fletch” wouldn’t be as interesting to watch.

Directed by Greg Mottola (who co-wrote the “Confess, Fletch” screenplay with Zev Borow), “Confess, Fletch” is adapted from Gregory Mcdonald’s 1976 book of the same title. The movie has been updated to take place in the early 2020s. This update is put to great use involving the movie’s running gag about GPS tracking.

At the beginning of “Confess, Fletch,” Irving Maurice Fletcher (played by Hamm), who prefers to be called by his nickname Fletch, is spending his first night at a rental townhouse in Boston. He goes downstairs to fix himself a drink, she he sees a murdered young woman on the living room floor. The cause of death is blunt force trauma to the head.

Fletch calmly calls 911 to report the murder, and he fixes himself drink. When the police arrive, Fletch appears too casual about everything and immediately falls under suspicion, since he was the only person in the house to find the body. When the estimated time of death is later revealed, Fletch doesn’t have an alibi. To make matters worse for Fletch, his fingerprints are all over the murder weapon: a wine bottle.

The name of the murder victim is Laurel Goodwin (played by Caitlin Zerra Rose), who was an aspiring art dealer or art broker. She was working as a barista while trying to start a career in the art industry. Fletch insists to the police that he never met or saw Laurel before he found her dead in the townhouse. He also says he has no motive to kill this stranger.

The two police officials who are on the case are Sergeant Inspector Morris Monroe (played by Roy Wood Jr.) and his rookie partner Griz (played by Ayden Mayeri), who also goes by the name Gracie. Fletch is the type of person who’s irked that he had to tell these investigators his real full name, but Griz refuses to tell Fletch what her real full name is. Throughout the movie, Fletch plays pranks on Griz, who is more gullible than Inspector Monroe.

Inspector Monroe thinks that Fletch is the most likely suspect, and he’s inclined to arrest Fletch for the murder, but there’s not enough evidence. Instead, Inspector Monroe keeps telling Fletch to make things easy for everyone by confessing to the murder. Instead, Fletch (who has a background in investigative journalism) irritates the police by trying to solve the murder himself.

Why is Fletch in Boston? The townhouse was actually rented by Fletch’s new girlfriend Angela De Grassi (played by Lorenza Izzo), a wealthy Italian heiress whom he met in Rome. Angela and Fletch have been dating for only one month. During their whirlwind romance, Angela finds out that several valuable paintings owned by her father have been stolen. And then, her father gets kidnapped. One of the paintings is a Picasso worth $20 million.

Fletch was able to find out that a Boston-based art collector named Ronald Horan (played by Kyle MacLachlan) has bought one of the paintings, but the painting hasn’t been delivered yet. It doesn’t mean that Ronald knows that the paintings have been stolen. Fletch is in Boston to investigate who will be delivering the painting and to find out if Ronald knows that the art has been stolen. Police in Italy are investigating the reported kidnapping of Angela’s father.

In other words, Fletch has tasked himself with two investigations in this story: the investigation of who murdered Laurel Goodwin and the investigation of who stole the De Grassi family paintings. Angela bitterly complains to Fletch that Angela’s stepmother Countess Sylvia De Grassi (played by Marcia Gay Harden) is a gold digger and might have been responsible for this art theft to get a secret fortune from selling the paintings.

Fletch sometimes stumbles and fumbles in his investigations, but he often manages to stay one step ahead of the police. He encounters some eccentric chararacters along the way, including Countess De Grassi, who tries to seduce Fletch in ways the movie deliberately compares to the Mrs. Robinson character in the 1968 film “The Graduate.” Harden (who is American in real life) is hilarious in this Countess De Grassi role, even though Harden’s Italian accent isn’t always believable.

The townhouse is owned by Owen Tasserly (played by John Behlmann), a wealthy heir who has been floundering in life. He tried and failed to be an actor and a restaurant owner. Owen is currently an art dealer who’s in the middle of a contentious divorce and custody battle over his underage daughter. Owen was apparently away on a trip to Europe during the murder, so he has an alibi.

Other characters in the story include Owen’s flaky neighbor Eve (played by Annie Mumolo), who is a talkative stoner with an apparent crush on Owen; Tatiana Tasserly (played by Lucy Punch), Owen’s pretentious and estranged wife; and gruff and sarcastic Frank Jaffe (played by John Slattery), who used to be Fletch’s boss at the Los Angeles Tirbune and who currently works as an editor at the Boston Sentinel. “Mad Men” fans should be pleased that former “Mad Men” stars Hamm and Slattery have a few scenes together in “Confess, Fletch.”

The movie has a breezy tone that plays up Fletch’s “naughty boy” attitude. Fletch is also a huge fan of the Los Angeles Lakers, which is used for recurring jokes in the film, such as Fletch’s fondness for wearing a Los Angeles Lakers cap and flaunting his Lakers fandom to people in Boston, who are no doubt Boston Celtics fans. Comparisons are inevitable to director Michael Ritchie’s 1985 “Fletch” movie (starring Chevy Chase in the title role), but “Confess, Fletch” and Hamm’s portrayal of Fletch makes this character less of a slapstick buffoon and more of a grizzled wiseass with sex appeal. Overall, “Confess, Fletch” (just like the title character himself) has some flaws and missteps, but the movie’s self-effacing comedy is appealing because it always lets the audience in on the joke.

Miramax/Paramount Pictures released “Confess, Fletch” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on September 16, 2022. Showtime will premiere the movie on October 28, 2022.

Review: ‘Queenpins,’ starring Kristen Bell and Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Paul Walter Hauser, Bebe Rexha and Vince Vaughn

September 8, 2021

by Carla Hay

Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Kristen Bell in “Queenpins” (Photo courtesy of STX)

“Queenpins”

Directed by Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Southwest region of the United States and in Chihuahua, Mexico, the comedy film “Queenpins” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people and Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class

Culture Clash: A neglected housewife and her best friend team up for a coupon-stealing scam that could make them millions of dollars.

Culture Audience: “Queenpins” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Kristen Bell and anyone who likes cliché-filled comedies.

Paul Walter Hauser and Vince Vaughn in “Queenpins” (Photo courtesy STX)

“Queenpins” could have been a hilarious satire of coupon culture, but this boring and unimaginative comedy fizzles at the halfway mark and never recovers. Kristen Bell is usually the best thing about any of the bad movies she’s in, but in “Queenpins,” she just seems to be going through the motions. This movie has several talented stars but they’re stuck portraying two-dimensional characters and are forced to say a lot of cringeworthy dialogue that isn’t very funny.

Written and directed by husband-and-wife duo Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly, “Queenpins” hits all the cliché beats of comedies about ordinary people who decide to rob the rich in order to fight back at an unfair system. The movie is inspired by true events. In “Queenpins,” the thieves are unhappily married homemaker Connie Kaminski (played by Bell) and unemployed YouTube personality Joanna “JoJo” Johnson (played by Kirby Howell-Baptiste), who are best friends and next-door neighbors in Phoenix. Connie and JoJo are in debt and are tired of being broke.

Within six months, Connie and JoJo end up making $5 million in a scam of stealing coupons from a coupon redemption company called Advanced Solutions and then reselling the coupons. Because they’re committing fraud against major corporations, Connie and JoJo think of themselves as modern-day Robin Hoods—except they don’t really give any of their misbegotten fortune to poor people. They end up keeping the $5 million for themselves. And then, they panic because they think they should launder the money. And so, Connie and JoJo get mixed up in illegal gun deals and other shenanigans.

This scam was all Connie’s idea. She’s become a coupon addict, ever since she had a miscarriage of a baby girl. Connie is using her coupon addiction to cope with her grief. Connie’s aloof husband Rick Kaminski (played by Joel McHale) is a senior audit specialist for the Internal Revenue Service. The couple had been trying to start a family through in vitro fertilization treatments, which have left Connie and Rick more than $71,000 in debt.

Connie and Rick’s arguments with each other are mostly about money. Because of Connie’s coupon-using obsession, she has overstocked their home with products that they don’t need. After the miscarriage, Rick decided to take on more traveling responsibilities in his job, so he’s away from home for about three weeks out of any given month.

JoJo lives with her cranky mother Josephine Johnson (played by Greta Oglesby), also known as Mama Josie, who’s gotten tired of supporting her jobless daughter. JoJo has been trying and failing to become a beauty-product guru on YouTube. And she’s heavily in debt because she was the victim of identity theft, which ruined her credit. At first, JoJo is very reluctant to get involved in Connie’s plans to commit coupon fraud, but Connie convinces JoJo that they probably won’t get caught.

During their coupon-theft scheme, Connie and JoJo predictably come across a series of “wacky characters” and the inevitable people who try to bust these coupon scammers. The first authority figure who gets suspicious of this fraud is uptight but dimwitted Ken Miller (played by Paul Walter Hauser), a loss protection manager for the Southwest region of a supermarket chain called A&G. He’s eventually joined by gruff-mannered Simon Kilmurry (played by Vince Vaughn), a U.S. Postal Service inspector. Ken and Simon both have huge egos and inevitably clash over who should be in charge of the investigation.

“Queenpins” has a talented cast, but the problem is in the dull screenplay and hackneyed direction. Connie and JoJo have believable chemistry together as friends, but the supporting characters just come in and out of the story like disconnected pieces of a puzzle. Bebe Rexha plays a bustier-wearing, cynical ex-friend of Connie’s named Tempe Tina, who is a con artist/computer hacker extraordinaire who dresses in all-black clothing. Connie and JoJo go to Tina for advice on how to be successful criminals.

“Queenpins” attempts to make jokes about race relations that end up falling flat. JoJo’s mother constantly has to point out what she sees as differences between white people and black people. Mama Josie has a fear of JoJo losing her “blackness” by hanging out too much with white people like Connie and having the same interests that Connie has. Mama Josie’s mindset is racist, but it’s somehow supposed to be excused and thought of as humorous in this movie. This attitude becomes annoying after a while.

And when Connie and JoJo go to Chihuahua, Mexico, they recruit a married Mexican couple named Alejandro (played by Francisco J. Rodriguez) and Rosa (played by Ilia Isorelýs Paulinoa), who work at Advanced Solutions’ biggest factory. Alejandro and Rosa are enlisted to steal the boxes of coupons that end up making about $5 million for Connie and JoJo. When Connie and JoJo first meet Alejandro and Rosa, they follow the couple by car when they see Alejandro and Rosa outside of the factory.

Alejandro and Rosa mistakenly think that Connie and JoJo want to rob them, so the couple almost physically assaults the two pals, until Connie and JoJo explain that they want to hire Alejandro and Rosa for this theft. Rosa explains why she and her husband were so quick to attack: “You never follow people in Mexico,” thereby stereotyping Mexico as a dangerous place all the time.

The movie makes a very weak attempt at social commentary about labor exploitation and how American companies outsource jobs to other countries for cheaper labor. But those ideas are left by the wayside, as the movie follows a very over-used formula of amateur criminals (Connie and JoJo) who make things worse for themselves. As an example of how “Queenpins” brings up and then abandons labor exploitation issues, Connie and JoJo are shocked that Alejandro and Rosa each make a factory salary of only $2 an hour, but then Connie and JoJo continue with their selfish and greedy plans.

Viewers won’t have much sympathy for Connie and JoJo because they make so many dumb mistakes. As a way to sell their stolen coupons, Connie and JoJo create a website, which is not on the Dark Web, called Savvy Super Saver. JoJo also peddles the coupons on her YouTube channel, thereby making it very easy to identify her as one of the culprits.

“Queenpins” is told mainly from Connie’s perspective, because she is the one who does the movie’s voiceover narration. Connie has an unusual history as a three-time Olympic gold medalist in race walking, but that background is barely explored in the movie. Instead, Connie says a lot of uninteresting things in her bland dialogue.

Of her Olympic experiences, she comments: “You know what that’s worth in the real world? Nothing!” She has this personal motto on saving money in her coupon fixation: “Watch the pennies, and the dollars will take care of themselves.” And when Connie decides to become a criminal, she explains her justification to JoJo this way: “You know who gets rewarded? People who don’t follow the rules. It’s time we start bending them a little!”

Among the other irritating aspects of “Queenpins” are the overly intrusive sitcom-ish musical score and soundtrack choices. When Connie struts into a business meeting with the fake persona of being a powerhouse entrepreneur, she wears a snug-fitting blue dress and blue blazer, while the movie’s soundtrack blares Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels’ 1967 hit “Devil With a Blue Dress On.” It’s just too “on the nose” and corny, just like the majority of this movie. There’s a gross (but not too explicit) defecation scene involving Ken, after he talks about his food habits and defecation routine, which seems like a lazy and cheap shot at someone who’s plus-sized.

Some of the other supporting characters in “Queenpins” include postal carrier Earl (played by Dayo Okeniyi), who has a crush on JoJo and becomes her obvious love interest; Greg Garcia (played by Eduardo Franco), a jaded cashier at the A&G store where Connie does her grocery shopping; a coupon buyer named Crystal (played by Annie Mumolo), who reports her suspicions about JoJo; and Agent Park (played by Jack McBrayer), one of the law enforcement agents involved in a sting to capture Connie and JoJo.

“Queenpins” has all the characteristics of a substandard TV comedy, which means it’s certainly not worth the price of a movie ticket. People who are very bored, have low standards, or are die-hard fans of any of the “Queenpins” headliners might get some enjoyment out of this film. At one point in the movie, Bell’s Connie character says, “You may be asking yourself, ‘Who won and who lost in all of this?’ I guess that’s really for you to decide.” If you don’t want to lose or waste any time on silly comedies that don’t do anything original, then you can decide to skip “Queenpins.”

STX will release “Queenpins” in select U.S. cinemas (exclusively in Cinemark theaters) on September 10, 2021. Paramount+ will premiere “Queenpins” on September 30, 2021.

Review: ‘Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar,’ starring Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo

February 11, 2021

by Carla Hay

Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo in “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” (Photo by Cate Cameron/Lionsgate)

“Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar”

Directed by Josh Greenbaum

Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in the fictional U.S. cities of Taylorsville and Vista Del Mar, the comedy film “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” features a predominantly white cast (with some African Americans and a few Asians and Latinos) representing the middle-class and working-class.

Culture Clash: Two middle-aged female best friends unwittingly get ensnared in a villain’s scheme to get deadly revenge on the residents of Vista Del Mar, Florida.

Culture Audience: “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” will appeal primarily to fans of stars Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo (who co-wrote 2011’s Oscar-nominated “Bridesmaids”), but “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” is a disappointing, uneven dud.

Jamie Dornan in “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” (Photo by Cate Cameron/Lionsgate)

When close friends Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo first wrote a movie screenplay together, it was for 2011’s hilarious “Bridesmaids,” which garnered an Academy Award nomination for the duo, as well as a best supporting actress Oscar nod for “Bridesmaids” co-star Melissa McCarthy. Unfortunately, Wiig and Mumolo’s next screenplay collaboration is the messy and frequently unfunny “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar,” an awkward mishmash of repetitive jokes about being middle-aged women, with some sci-fi and musical theater elements that mostly fall flat. The movie definitely won’t be nominated for any awards, not even a Razzie, because “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” is ultimately forgettable.

Directed by Josh Greenbaum, “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” is a frequently unfocused movie that loses steam in the last third of the film. Greenbaum has a background in directing sitcoms, such as “Fresh Off the Boat” and “New Girl.” And that TV comedy background shows up in the most annoying ways in this movie. The music score sounds like it was made for a sitcom, and the music volume is turned up to irritating levels because it interrupts the flow of the movie.

Unlike “Bridesmaids,” which was made for adults, “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” tries to be more family-friendly and therefore loses a lot of potential to have raunchy humor that’s genuinely funny. However, there are moments where the filmmakers tried to throw in some adult-themed content, such as drug-fueled partying that ends up with some of the main characters having a sexual threesome. But this very adult scenario doesn’t really work in this film, because the movie is too cutesy with its sexual innuendo, thereby making the tone of the movie look confused and ultimately ineffective. Imagine if 2009’s “The Hangover” or 2017’s “Girls Trip” held back on a lot of the things that happened in the stories because the filmmakers wanted to make these movies suitable for underage kids to watch.

In “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar,” Mumolo portrays widow Barb Quicksilver and Wiig portrays divorcée Star Testigivlio, two middle-aged best friends/housemates who talk in a Midwestern twang and embody every stereotype of being a very bland, sheltered and uptight middle-aged American woman. (The movie has a running joke about Barb and Star’s penchant for wearing culotte pants.) The movie doesn’t say which U.S. state Barb and Star live in, but their hometown is called Taylorsville, and it’s far enough away from Florida that they have to travel by plane to get to the Florida city of Vista Del Mar.

Barb and Star are motormouths who frequently talk over each other but don’t have much to say that’s meaningful. They obsess over trivial things, such as why they don’t want anyone to buy their favorite sofa at the Jennifer Convertibles furniture store where they work as sales clerks. They’re so attached to the sofa that they come up with excuses for customers not to buy it. In the end, it doesn’t matter, because one day their boss (played by Ian Gomez) calls Barb and Star into his office and tells them that they’re all losing their jobs because the company has gone out of business.

As Barb and Star leave the store in shock, a friend of theirs named Mickey Revelet (played by Wendi McLendon-Covey) sees them walking down the street and runs over to talk to them. Mickey raves to Barb and Star about just coming back in town from the vacation that she and her man Miguel took in Vista Del Mar, Florida. (It’s a fictional city in Florida. The movie was actually filmed in Mexico City and Cancun, Mexico.)

Mickey brags that not only did she have a lot of fun and get a splendid tan, but she also says that going to Vista Del Mar had this effect on her: “I feel like I got a soul douche.” That’s the type of dialogue in the movie that’s supposed to be funny. Before Mickey leaves, she hands Barb and Star a travel brochure for Vista Del Mar. McLendon-Covey was a scene-stealing character in “Bridesmaids,” but “Bridesmaids” fans will be disappointed that her role in “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” is really just a quick cameo, since she’s only in the movie for about five minutes.

Barb and Star’s idea of fun is getting together not with a book club but with a talk club, which consists of other boring women who are around the same age. The members of the talk club gather to discuss a single topic per meeting. Shortly after Barb and Star lose their jobs, they’re at a talk club meeting, which is led by a bossy snob named Debbie (played by Vanessa Bayer) at Debbie’s home. Three other women are also in attendance: Pinky (played by Fortune Feimster), Delores (played by Phyllis Smith) and Bev (played by Rose Abdoo), who all do whatever Debbie expects them to do.

The talk club has certain rules that Debbie is fanatical about enforcing. When one of the club members is one minute late, Debbie locks the door and won’t let her inside. And the three cardinal rules of the club are (1) No wearing of sneakers; (2) No swearing, except for the “f” word; and (3) No lying. When Debbie announces that this meeting topic will be jobs, Barb and Star look at each other with dread because they’re embarrassed to talk about how they’ve become recently unemployed.

As the members of the club go around the room to talk about their jobs, (pharmacist Debbie is ecstatic when she describes how much she loves shaking pills in bottles while listening to music), Barb and Star continue to act as if they still work at the furniture store. However, the guilt of lying gets to Star, who blurts out that she and Barb lied and they actually got laid off recently. A furious Debbie kicks Barb and Star out of the club.

With their social life in shambles, Barb and Star decide to follow Mickey’s advice and take a vacation in Vista Del Mar. On the plane, there’s a sequence that goes on for far too long where Barb and Star ramble on about what kind of lady would be an ideal friend to lots of other women. They call her Trish and imagine all sorts of scenarios and personality traits that this ideal woman would have. And as soon as this becomes the entire plane conversation in the movie, you just know that there will be a character named Trish that shows up at some point.

Now for the weird and clunky sci-fi part of the story. It’s shown in the beginning of the movie that underneath the quiet streets of suburban Taylorsville is a high-tech underground bunker where a villain lives named Sharon Gordon Fisherman (also played by Wiig), who wants to kill the people of Vista Del Mar for a revenge reason that’s revealed in the movie. (It’s the most obvious reason possible.) The only way to get to the bunker is through a secret entrance in a tree trunk. Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

Sharon has a skin condition that makes her look unusually pale and sensitive to being in sunlight. She always wears white clothing. And she wears her hair in a jet-black bob, which kind of makes her look like a cross between Gloria Vanderbilt and Tilda Swinton, if they wanted to look like a Goth who only wears white. Sharon has a bitter demeanor and she seems to have problems emotionally connecting to people.

Sharon has three people working for her: an unnamed elderly scientist (played by Patrick Bristow), a handsome henchman named Edgar Pagét (played by Jamie Dornan), and a precocious boy named Yoyo (played by Reyn Doi), who’s about 9 or 10 years old. In the movie’s opening scene, Yoyo is shown riding his bike while delivering newspapers and singing Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb’s 1980 hit “Guilty.” However, Yoyo is no mild-mannered paperboy.

The scientist tells Sharon that he’s found a way to genetically modify mosquitos so that one mosquito sting can kill a large animal in minutes. When the scientist finds out that Sharon wants to use these mosquitos to kill humans, he objects to this plan and then is on the receiving end of Sharon’s deadly wrath. Shortly after that, Sharon orders Yoyo to activate a remote control in an earring that he’s wearing. The remote control sets off a bomb that was in a newspaper that Yoyo delivered to someone’s front porch.

Sharon then dispatches Edgar to go to Vista Del Mar to let loose the lethal mosquitos on the city’s population. Edgar is infatuated with Sharon and there’s a not-very-believable subplot that Edgar wants to be her boyfriend, but she’s been resistant to the idea. Sharon has a dead personality, so it’s very far-fetched that someone like Edgar (who could have his pick of women) would be pining after someone who lacks charisma and is very self-absorbed. But maybe Edgar likes women who play very hard-to-get.

And so, when Edgar goes to Vista Del Mar and inevitably meets Barb and Star, it’s at a hotel bar. He’s pining over Sharon and distracted in thinking about her, while Barb and Star try to strike up a conversation with him. There are some shenanigans that happen between Barb, Star and Edgar that leads to a very cliché plot development in a movie about two female best friends: They end up competing with each other over a man. Take a wild guess who it is.

In addition to the sci-fi elements of the movie that are very poorly conceived (with tacky visual effects), “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” has some musical song-and-dance interludes that come out of nowhere. The first is when Barb and Star arrive at the Palm Vista Hotel, and all the people in the lobby break into a musical number to greet Barb and Star. Edgar also has an extensive musical number on the beach that involves an obvious stunt double.

There are also some other bizarre things in the movie that don’t work well either. For example, Star has a conversation with a talking crab named Morgan Freemond (voiced by Josh Robert Thompson), and the “joke” is that the crab sounds like Morgan Freeman and gives advice to the lovelorn Star. Damon Wayans Jr. has a useless role in the movie as a spy named Darlie Bunkle, who makes contact with Edgar. The running gag with Darlie is that he’s supposed to be undercover and always lectures Edgar to keep their communication “private,” but Darlie always bungles and reveals his own identity so that it’s out in the open and not “private” at all.

If the movie wasn’t trying so hard to appeal to underage audiences, it could’ve had more fun showing adults acting and talking like adults. Instead, by playing it too coy and too safe, the movie’s humor fails to be edgy or genuine. There’s a recurring character in the movie named Richard Cheese (played by Mark Jonathan Davis), who’s a singer/pianist in the hotel lounge. The joke is that Richard keeps singing about how much he loves women’s breasts, and he comes up with all sorts of ways to say the word “breasts.” It’s a mildly funny gag, but the humor is very juvenile, like 10-year-old boys giggling about saying slang words for this part of the female anatomy.

“Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” is a story about two middle-aged single women who go on what’s supposed to be a fun-filled vacation together, but the movie is so watered down, that Barb and Star might as well have been teenagers. Barb and Star are sheltered women, but it would’ve been funnier to have them experience culture shock in a raunchier environment. “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” is one of those movies where the trailer makes the film look a lot funnier than it actually is.

Wiig and Mumolo (who are also two of the movie’s producers) are capable of doing much better work. Barb and Star are fairly one-note. And except for a brief mention of why they are single (Barb’s husband Ron died in an accident, while Star’s husband Carmine left her for another woman), there’s no backstory for these two central characters. It seems as if the filmmakers were trying to do a middle-aged version of 1997’s “Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion” (another movie about two sheltered best friends who travel somewhere to party), but “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” lacks a lot of the charm that made “Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion” a hit.

“Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” isn’t a completely terrible movie, because viewers can find some laughs here and there. (People who are under the influence of alcohol or other substances while watching are more likely to find this movie funny.) Wiig has better comedic timing than Mumolo, while Dornan has some deliberately campy moments that can’t save this embarrassing film. Andy Garcia and Reba McEntire have unremarkable cameos in the movie. Considering the level of talent involved in this movie, it’s a misfire in so many ways, and it will just make people appreciate “Bridesmaids” even more.

Lionsgate will release “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” on VOD on February 12, 2021.

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