Movie Review: We're the Millers

We're the Millers (2013)



A veteran pot dealer creates a fake family as part of his plan to move a huge shipment of weed into the U.S. from Mexico.  Short synopsis of We're the Millers taken from IMDb.com

My wife commented halfway through this that there were parts of We're the Millers that were painful to watch (she despises scenes in shows/films in which people act asinine or ridiculously cliche), but the rest of it was so funny that she was enjoying it.  I think that is a pretty decent summation of We're the Millers.  Parts of the film are ridiculous, but other parts are so genuinely comedic that they near make up the difference.

Basic plot run-down: We have a drug dealer, played by Jason Sudeikis, who gets caught up in a "good deed," and in so doing gets robbed by a bunch of neighborhood thugs and can't pay back his supplier.  The supplier makes him a deal: be a drug mule for me across the Mexican border for one big score (the supplier calls it a "smidge and a half" of pot) and he'll not only pay our hard up dealer for the job, but he'll forgive the debt he owes, to boot.  Too good to be true?  Of course it is, but we'll find that out as the plot thickens.

So our drug dealer decides that he should get a fake family together to drive an RV across the border, as a way to camouflage his activities.  After all, nobody would stop and search a smucky family in an RV on a vacation to old Mexico, now would they? 

Along the path back to Denver, our drug mule family stops at a carnival (the details are blurry now) and daughter Casey meets a carnie who goes by the moniker of Scotty-P.  There are some pretty amusing lines associated with the group's interactions with this kid, such as the one above. / Source: itsfunny.org

Drug Dealer enlists two young people (played by Will Poulter as Kenny and Emma Roberts as Casey), who coincidentally were part of the good deed gone wrong from earlier, and his neighbor Rose, a stripper with a secret heart of gold, played by Jennifer Aniston.  We all get in the rented RV, cross the Mexican border without so much as a second look, and go get the drugs.  The smidge and a half of pot turns out to be two metric tons of pot.  The RV is to the gunwales with it.  And then comes the sometimes humorous, sometimes ridiculous adventure to get back to Denver with the load.

There are scenes in this film that are so predictable.  For one, we have a bowl of fruit given as a gift by the Mexican drug lab leader's mother, which has a stowaway tarantula in it.  As the audience, we see this tarantula and know its gonna factor in later.  Well nearly half way through the film, our "virgin" boy, Kenny, is driving the RV as we are running from the Mexican drug cartel guys (the why isn't terribly important, but I'll save it for those of you who may end up watching this film, if you haven't seen it already), and the tarantula runs up his leg during a tense moment and bites him on his testicle.

Yes, this scene gets gross and obnoxious real quick.  Kenny runs out of the RV and begins hopping around, yelling that "a spider bite his balls," and teenage girl Casey of the fake family is filming it all on her iPhone, while mother (Rose) and father (Dave, the drug dealer) figures go back and forth between arguing over what to do and trying to console the kid.  It's a gross, somewhat explicit scene, and the humor is extremely juvenile.  We're the Millers does stuff like this several times throughout, and each time I was both laughing and also feeling pretty disgusted at the same time.  It's stereotypical locker room humor for sure, but played against the motif of this bunch of people who are actually somewhat evolving into the roles they have taken just to make some money, it actually manages to be create a genuine laugh or two, despite the fact that sometimes you aren't sure if you are laughing with the film or at it.

As always, a warning up front that the following clip contains some adult language and themes.  Just so you are warned.

The film's gag reel contained one of the better moments.  Starts around 1:33 in the clip.  Aniston's reaction is priceless.

Crass and crude as it is, there were times I enjoyed We're the Millers.  The spoofiness on the suburban smucks vs. the juxtaposition of this very disparate group of people pretending to be smucks was funny.  The slapstick and the bit comedy that makes up their adventures could have been pulled from any attempt-at-comedy movie.  But it is that unique duality that the actors are playing that kept me invested, even when the material got ridiculous (how many times can I use the word "ridiculous" word before it too becomes ridiculous, I wonder?).

In the end, We're the Miller is recommended only for those who enjoy crass humor without taking offense, and can put up with the film's foibles in favor of its merits.  It is a strong "R" in this reviewer's opinion.  Lots and lots of F-bombs, tons of sexual reference/dialogue, violence, a bit of male nudity (as mentioned), Jennifer Aniston does a strip tease that... well I thought it rather all show and little substance, but most movie strip teases seem that way to me.  Not that I'm any real expert on strip teases personally, nor that Aniston doesn't do her part.  But the theaticalness of it was silly to me.  You want my opinion of sexy in a movie?  Go to the old stuff.  Ingrid Bergman, Rita Hayworth, and like that.  Sexy is looking and acting hot, sure, but not leaving the audience feeling like they need to wash after seeing it (film's that use gratuitous sex) or it is obviously thrown in just for "shock" value (Aniston's aforementioned tease, I'd say).  But I'm admittedly old-fashioned on the subject.

A bit of wordplay humor.  I'm a dork, I know, but I crack a smile at such things. / Source: forum.grasscity.com

Anyway, I'm running off point again.  We're the Millers is not a re-watch, but I'd venture to say it was worth the buck and a half from Redbox.  It was an amusing diversion, and is recommended only as such.


The parting comment:

Source: lygsbtd.wordpress.com

I never put this together.  Clever though.  Though I'd have to say for sheer rocking out value, "Highway to Hell" all the way, baby.

And with that thought in mind:


I couldn't resist.