Screened Out: We’re the Millers

[three-star-rating]Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Will Poulter, Emma Roberts, Ed Helms[/three-star-rating]

We’re the Millers is an average flick about petty criminals pretending to be the average American family. This is my namesake, and like my family, Millers is alternately very funny and very predictable.

Have you ever watched a film where you saw the next four plot points whole scenes before they happen? Millers is that kind of trip, but it’s bolstered by fine comedic chemistry.

Sudeikis is David, a small-time pot dealer whose life has no ties and no direction. David’s whole stash and his cash get stolen when he and geeky nerd neighbor Poulter (Son of Rambow) try to rescue street urchin Roberts (Nancy Drew). David has to pay back oily drug kingpin Helms, so he enlists these two kids and stripper Aniston on a trip to Mexico to get more marijuana. They have to transport “enough pot to kill Willie Nelson” in a giant RV. Their guise is to act like the typical midwestern family, the Millers.

This film’s first hits are quick, clean and neat; that’s the only place where I was impressed with the screenwriters.

Nothing else in this script is surprising. I was so underwhelmed by the gimmick; in fact, I started wondering if I was having flashbacks, if I’ve just seen too many movies. Then I realized that too many flicks have situations too similar to this.

What rescues the Millers is that Sudeikis, Anniston and, to a lesser degree Poulter and Helms, have some real comic kick. (I wish I could say the same for Roberts, whose performance is a bit of a downer.) In fact, these characters are more like my real Miller family. They curse, they flip each other off, and they all probably have a rap sheet of minor crimes. The humor is in how they fail to hide their true natures.

[rating-key]

The actors are obviously improvising much of the film. They almost always find a clever, hilarious way to deliver the goods. Part of what works here is that the situation they’re in is restrictive enough, they have to pretend to be so straight-laced, that using unbridled improv just doesn’t work.

This is Sudeikis in his first post-Saturday Night Live release. He really needs a more detailed part than this, something like Steve Carrell’s in Little Miss Sunshine, Greg Kinnear’s in As Good as it Gets, or even Will Ferrell’s under-rated turn in Stranger Than Fiction. Choosing the right role is how performers go from being thought of as comedians to being considered as comedic actors. Even Aniston pulled it off in The Good Girl. In other words, Sudeikis needs a more fleshed-out part to prove himself on.

Millers won’t be a buzz-kill to Sudeikis’ career. But it won’t have him riding high, either. It’s a temporary trip, one worth the distraction with no lasting side effects.