As the advances in CGI special effects have continued to keep
action-movie audiences roaring for bigger and better displays of
digital bombast, a trend in Hollywood comedies has upped the ante
in a parallel way. Raunchy, risqué, and just plain filthy humour
is standard fare for audiences who like their vulgar laughs as
much as their superheroic explosions. The two worlds collide in
The Watch, a dirty shoot-'em-up whose comic core counters the
extreme sci-fi story of an alien race that can't take a joke.
Fortunately, the decidedly non-superhuman heroes battle it out
with equal parts punches and punch lines. The first-rate cast is
headed by Ben Stiller, who has plenty of experience with filthy
humour and big-budget action. He also has the movie-star charisma
to bring high concept down to the toilet or the gutter, whichever
happens to be funnier. Stiller plays Evan, the upstanding,
uptight manager of an Ohio Costco who starts to really care about
crime after one of his security guards is brutally murdered. The
can't really be bothered (Will Forte is excellent as a
pompous local lawman), so Evan starts a neighbourhood watch as a
way to take back the night. Unfortunately his recruits turn out
to be a less than vigilant vigilante group, with Vince Vaughn as
a brawny motor mouth obsessed with protecting his teen daughter,
Jonah Hill as an off-kilter arms expert who was rejected by the
academy (for good reason), and the indeterminately ethnic
Richard Ayoade (excellent, as he was in The IT Crowd), who's
focused only on the kind of action that involves sex and females.
The quartet's individual issues are played at maximum
laugh-per-minute volume and remain part of the story even after
the team realises their crime problem isn't from the inner city,
it's from outer space. Turns out a hive of aliens have
commandeered Evan's Costco as a base of operations to dominate
humanity. After all, what better place to stage an Earth takeover
than a place that has everything? (Costco should get a big-box
good sport award for signing off on such wall-to-wall product
placement.) The script by Jared Stern, Seth Rogen, and Evan
Goldberg (the latter two's brilliant writing career also includes
Superbad and Pineapple Express) is chock-a-block with jokes. The
Watch tries so hard for nonstop laughs that it can't help but
yield a high rate of success, especially when the material is
worked by such an estimable ensemble of comedy pros. It's clear
that director Akiva Schaffer fostered a strong improv vibe on the
set (his background is directing shorts on Saturday Night Live).
He's best at capturing a spontaneous sketch-comedy tone that
drives the constant one-upsmanship between the filthy, shocking
shenanigans of the four leads. They get ample help from the
supporting cast. In addition to Will Forte as the disinterested
cop, Rosemary DeWitt is terrific as Evan's demanding wife. And in
an extended, uncredited cameo Billy Crudup plays the weirdest,
most enigmatic creepy-insinuation-guy ever. Talk about hiding a
dirty secret! There's an overall hit-or-miss quality of comedy
and action in The Watch, though there are plenty more tick marks
in the hit column. It's all bad-mannered good fun with the badge
of a hard-15 rating worn as proudly as a giant splooge of green
alien slime. --Ted Fry