Chew's Reviews - The Interview

By Gary Chew | December 27, 2014 |

The only surprise for me seeing The Interview --- finally --- was that too much of what's on television is rhetorically battered almost to the degree Kim Jong Un is. Maybe all the flap about the movie really comes from people in the TV biz who are uncomfortable with that fact, and don't want the public to learn how perturbed they are.

Then again, the movie could be a plot hatched by the Obama Administration with Hollywood to diss Kim Jong Un; a little like the CIA and Hollywood collaborating on getting Americans out of Tehran as recounted in another movie called Argo.

By now, everyone on the planet knows the plot of The Interview. What's not known are things in the narrative that have been held in abeyance for when you see the whole thing. For example, TV host Dave Skylark (James Franco) loves dogs and dresses horribly; Aaron Rapoport (Seth Rogen), producer of Skylark Tonight, is not adept at fighting wild tigers, especially in the dark … and has a powerful yen for petite Asian women, as demonstrably shown in a more humorous than erotic scene in the movie.

Other than that, Dave and Aaron are just your average kind of La La Land jerks who speak mostly in scatological parables about their daily routine and how much they'd like to sleep with every attractive female who's between the ages of 18 and 50 and lives on Earth.

Another factor is how well Randall Park plays Kim Jong Un. Having reviewed some of Mr. Park's photos from times prior to the filming of The Interview, it looks as though this Los Angeles native had to get a special haircut to do the role. Just sayin'.

Another piece of information you won't know about as you step into the theater to see the picture is that North Korean men in the military are devoid of a sense of humor. Freaking nothing is funny to these guys … which makes things pretty funny most of the time as you watch.

Some of the conversation back and forth bits between Rogen and Franco might have worked better if some of that schtick had been left on the floor of the cutting room. Finding a good punch line for some of them seemed to not be determined with any sort of comic genius. But the boys are pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty funny.

But the biggest deal about The Interview are the special appearances given by other people of note. To be exact, you'll see Skylark taking an interview on his really cool show with Eminem. Mr. Eminem declares he's gay and the TV control room goes ballistic. Furthermore, you'll come to the astounding realization that Rob Lowe doesn't have much hair on his head. In fact, he looks as creepy as he does in those current TV commercials I'm sure you've seen of him. Then there's Joseph Gordon Levitt who appears so briefly in a one-second flash edit on the screen that I could swear he's sitting in a play pen … playing. But how can I be sure of that, unless I see the film once more?

As I think someone once sang, “Once Is Enough” for The Interview. But ain't it just grand that all of us who want to … can see it in a theater or at some other movie connosieur's house on their big flat screen. Take that, Kim Jong Un!

Copyright © 2014 by Gary Chew. All rights reserved.