On March 7, Prime Video premiered the comedy film «Ricky Stanicky» starring Zac Efron and John Cena. After a series of dramatic parts («The Greatest Beer Run Ever», «The Iron Claw»), the former returns to the genre of pure comedy, and the latter appears in such images that you could hardly see him before. In the review below, we share our impressions of Peter Farrelly’s new film and tell you what quality of humor the viewer can expect this time.
Pluses:
a few good jokes that really make you laugh; a good cast, among which, however, only John Cena tries his best; the latter's vivid stage images
Minuses:
an inexcusably large number of unnecessary dialogues, characters and scenes that waste the viewer's time; a lot of dubious humor; Farrelly seems to have not finally decided whether he wants to get — crude vulgarity or still «human» comedy
«Ricky Stanicky»
Genre comedy
Director Peter Farrelly
Starring Zac Efron, John Cena, Jermaine Fowler, Andrew Santino, William H. Macy, Lex Scott Davis
Premiere Prime Video
Year of issue 2024
Website IMDb
On Halloween 1999, little pranksters Dan, Wes and JT dress up in costumes Freddy Krueger, Austin Powers and a Dalmatian, probably referring to the movie «101 Dalmatians», and set fire to a bag of dog excrements right in front of their neighbor’s door. But the situation gets out of hand and the fire spreads to the nearest stuffed animal. In order to avoid being punished for their behavior, the boys leave «evidence» with the inscription of a fictitious name «Ricky Stanicky», who is to take on the role of scapegoat.
Even today, several decades later, adult friends continue to use this win-win formula for their own benefit. If you want to run away from your wife or girlfriend to a Marc Rebillet concert — Ricky Stanicky is there to help. All the guys’ mortal sins hang on this mythical character, who has been heard about but never seen. And now, as a famous ex-television host used to say, this day has come — the family asks Dan, Wes, and Jay T to finally introduce them to the man of legend.
The unlucky liars have no choice but to turn to Rod, an alcoholic impersonator pumped full of steroids, whom they met during one of their parties. The latter is supposed to play the role of Ricky Stanicky, but something will go wrong.
Over the course of their long career, brothers Peter and Bobby Farrelly have made a bunch of comedies of varying degrees of quality and vulgarity, starting with «Dumb and Dumber» from 30 years ago. Its silly 2014 sequel — is currently the brothers’ last feature-length project together, after which they crossed paths in the series «Loudermilk», and then their creative paths diverged.
Remarkably, while sailing solo, Peter focused on more serious and dramatic cinema, publishing the excellent «Green Book» (2018) and «The Greatest Beer Run Ever» (2022), from which Zac Efron moved to the new film. So now Peter Farrelly is the director whose filmography conveniently includes such different and opposite projects as the Oscar-winning «Green Book» and the shameful «Movie 43» (2013).
With «Ricky Stanicky», the director returns to his favorite comedy genre, and this idea looked interesting enough on paper. Unfortunately, the result leaves much to be desired.
On the one hand, we can see Farrelly’s desire to go all out and, like in the good old days, produce a product that is heavily stuffed with tastelessness and vulgarity. You have never seen a John Cena like this before.). On the other hand, it’s obvious that the director seemed to be restraining himself to stay within the limits of the acceptable level of madness. This uncertainty definitely didn’t work: the result was neither a noble shameless cringe nor a good comedy with human humor and a mandatory moral in the predictable climax.
Some of the jokes really work, and William H. Macy’s public appearances bring a genuine smile to your face even after viewing. But such quality moments pale against the backdrop of questionable humor and get lost among the redundant dialog and scenes that irritatingly slow down the story.
Where it would have been worthwhile to add more comedic spice, Farrelly prefers to waste time on meaningless chatter and unnecessary characters that add nothing to the comedy. For example, the presence of the mustachioed guy from the commercial is played very poorly, and the line of one of his friends’ boyfriends is completely useless. And that’s not to mention the plot device of this level: circumcision of a newborn with a cigar guillotine. Now an actor, wrestler, former rapper, and strict brother of Dominic Toretto John Cena can safely add this skill to his resume.
Apart from Cena, there’s not much to say about the other actors. Zac Efron seems to have grown out of the tight pants of the role of a handsome dork in silly comedies, so he probably doesn’t show any interest in the project. It’s hard to characterize his friends at all, except to note that one of them is a red-haired and the other is a black.
It’s not the first time Prime Video has tried to make viewers laugh after a comedy «Outsiders». However, neither Snoop Dogg in a tracksuit ala «Squid Game» nor John Cena in the image of Alice Cooper is not a panacea for a completely unviable material.