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THE SLAMMIN' SALMON (2010)
Starring Michael Clarke Duncan, Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, Cobie Smulders, April Bowlby, Olivia Munn, Jeff Chase, Carla Gallo, Vivica A. Fox, Lance Henriksen and Morgan Fairchild.
Screenplay by Broken Lizard.
Directed by Kevin Heffernan.
Distributed by Anchor Bay Films. 90 minutes. Rated R.
I could go into great detail about all the myriad of ways that comic troupe Broken Lizard’s latest movie The Slammin’ Salmon is inept and simply does not work, but that would be giving the film much more thought than the makers did.
Instead, I will simply say this: I did not laugh one single time in the 90-minute running time of The Slammin’ Salmon. Not even a guilty chuckle. Even the most pathetic comedies usually stumble over one or two laughs.
Honestly, I’d just as soon leave my review of The Slammin’ Salmon at that and try my best to forget that it even exists, but unfortunately my work ethic is apparently stronger than that of Broken Lizard. I can not rationalize doing the absolute minimum of work and hoping that people will buy it.
Not that I should be surprised. Even merely the title of The Slammin’ Salmon should have been a warning sign that the movie was gonna stink. However, Broken Lizard has reached a certain cult notoriety and I keep wanting to give them the benefit of the doubt that they somewhat earned when their film Super Troopers became a surprise minor critical and popular hit several years ago. Lizard members Jay Chandrasekhar and Kevin Heffernan have even translated their success into minor success as directors.
However, in the years since their breakthrough, the guys have slimed us with the inept likes of Club Dread and Beerfest.
And, shockingly, The Slammin’ Salmon is a brand new low point for the troupe.
The action (if you can call it that) centers around a hip Miami upscale restaurant which employs a whole group of inept and borderline insane waiters. They have to make $20,000 in sales in a single night, or their boss will lose the restaurant to the Japanese mob. Of course, this all hinges on a man who turns out to not know the difference between a dollar and a yen, so even the set-up is a cheat.
The closest thing to signs of life comes from the few ringers that the Lizard boys brought in trying to prop their movie up. Sitcom actresses Cobie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother) and April Bowlby (Two and a Half Men) try to make the most of their underwritten roles as sister waitresses – one smart and one sexy (though both, obviously, are sexy to anyone with eyes). Saturday Night Live cast member Will Forte is a lone island of calm amidst the overwrought mugging as a customer who sits at a table for hours reading War and Peace, only ordering tea the whole time.
Unfortunately, Michael Clarke Duncan (The Green Mile) is wasted and shamed – yet again, the guy takes way too many bad roles – as the punch-drunk former boxing champ who owns the place. Duncan does his best to punch up the tired situations his character is given, but it’s a losing battle. Vivica A. Fox is also wasted as a Mary J. Blige / Beyonce-ish pop/soul star named Nutella. (Yeah, that’s really the character name.)
If you laugh at first degree burns, mental illness, big noses, end-credit bloopers, being run down by a horse, a guy having to poop out a ring he has mistakenly eaten and a really horrible and completely unnecessary parody of Survivor’s song “Eye of the Tiger,” then maybe The Slammin’ Salmon is the movie for you.
The rest of us should avoid it like a bad case of e coli.
This Salmon is rancid.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2010 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: April 3, 2010.
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