A process server and his marijuana dealer wind up on the run from hitmen and a corrupt police officer after he witnesses his dealer's boss murder a competitor while trying to serve papers on him.
Six Los Angeles celebrities are stuck in James Franco's house after a series of devastating events just destroyed the city. Inside, the group not only have to face the apocalypse, but themselves.
For fun-loving party animal Ben Stone, the last thing he ever expected was for his one-night stand to show up on his doorstep eight weeks later to tell him she's pregnant with his child.
Ron Burgundy is San Diego's top-rated newsman in the male-dominated broadcasting of the 1970s, but that's all about to change for Ron and his cronies when an ambitious woman is hired as a new anchor.
Director:
Adam McKay
Stars:
Will Ferrell,
Christina Applegate,
Steve Carell
After making their way through high school (twice), big changes are in store for officers Schmidt and Jenko when they go deep undercover at a local college.
Dave Skylark and his producer Aaron Rapaport run the celebrity tabloid show "Skylark Tonight". When they land an interview with a surprise fan, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, they are recruited by the CIA to assassinate him.
Three buddies wake up from a bachelor party in Las Vegas, with no memory of the previous night and the bachelor missing. They make their way around the city in order to find their friend before his wedding.
John Bennett, a man whose childhood wish of bringing his teddy bear to life came true, now must decide between keeping the relationship with the bear or his girlfriend, Lori.
Lazy court-process clerk and stoner Dale Denton has only one reason to visit his equally lazy dealer Saul Silver: to purchase weed, specifically, a rare new strain called Pineapple Express. But when Dale becomes the only witness to a murder by a crooked cop and the city's most dangerous drug lord, he panics and dumps his roach of Pineapple Express at the scene. Dale now has another reason to visit Saul: to find out if the weed is so rare that it can be traced back to him--and it is. As Dale and Saul run for their lives, they quickly discover that they're not suffering from weed-fueled paranoia: incredibly, the bad guys really are hot on their trail and trying to figure out the fastest way to kill them both. All aboard the Pineapple Express.Written by
Anonymous
As he is handing Dale some guns, Red (Danny McBride) says, "Ted Jones messed with the wrong melon farmers." This is a reference to the common network television practice of dubbing over swear words with less objectionable words, or terms that have a similar sound and length - even if the replacement words don't really make sense in the context of the movie. "Melon Farmers" is used most famously as the dub for "Mother F***ers" in the network television version of the Die Hard film franchise (in which lead character John McClane's famous catchphrase, "Yippie-kai-yay, Mother F***er!," became "Yippie-kai-yay, Melon Farmer!"). See more »
Goofs
While Dale is on top of Red with the door, they keep jumping from place to place on the floor. First, Red's head is in the sink, then its next to the sink, then farther, then closer. Even the sink itself jumps from sides that it fell on. Sometimes it's on its back, sometimes not. See more »
Quotes
Red:
[underneath a door]
TIME OUT! Time out!
Saul:
[stops jumping on the phone]
Okay, truce.
Red:
Time in! Fuck you!
Saul:
CHEATER!
Red:
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!
See more »
Crazy Credits
The film opens with the 1960's wide screen Columbia Pictures logo. See more »
Alternate Versions
For its UK cinema release the film was pre-cut by the distributors to remove a scene showing teenagers smoking a strong form of marijuana in order for the film to receive a '15' certificate. The footage was restored for the DVD and the certificate raised to '18'. See more »
There will be many who will dismiss "Pineapple Express" as immature, overly silly, disjointed, and scatter-shot. There will be others who recognize it as a bizarrely artful, playful, loose genre-bending comedy with some outstanding performances, an inspired comedy script, and some great work from director David Gordon Green, certainly one of the finest young directors around.
The latter group is correct. "Pineapple Express" is, as a whole, the best movie the Apatow clan has produced yet. David Gordon Green is unquestionably the best director to direct one of these movies, but this is also a very different sort of movie than the films he usually directs. Does he rise to the challenge? He certainly does. I never would have believed that he was capable of directing such exciting and fun action scenes, or keep the movie's tone steady despite the different elements it consists of being so wildly disparate, but somehow he pulls it off. No other stoner movie can claim to be as artful and well-directed as this film.
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's much-anticipated follow-up to "Superbad" is an excellent screenplay, but expect none of the realism and resonance of that film; "Pineapple Express" is all about the laughs, and the laughs are certainly here, and they are practically non-stop, with just about every scene featuring some great dialogue, acting, or the sort of incredible sight gag this movie does so well. This is just great comedy throughout.
In addition to David Gordon Green's excellent work as director, the film is technically superb. The soundtrack and use of music is brilliant, and frequent Gordon Green collaborator Tim Orr's cinematography is consistently great.
"Pineapple Express" will be an inherently divisive film. It didn't get the sort of critical accolades many previous Apatow clan movies did, and I expect audiences will also be a little less unanimous. Indeed, there's little of the critic-pleasing dramatic scenes Apatow's comedies have been praised for, and even when they do pop up they're usually deflated instantly with a joke, and credit has to go to director David Gordon Green for his expert handling of the film's tone, which never becomes schmaltzy, thank the heavens. Really, the whole film is throughly enjoyable except for the very last scene in the film, which contains one of the film's best jokes, but is really hard to buy given the state the characters are in, and also more than a little forced. Aside from that moment the whole thing works beautifully, quite astounding given the mesh of many different genres and sorts of comedy that this is. You either go with this movies sense of humor or you don't, and I imagine more people will enjoy the first three quarters of the movie, before the big, long action scene happens, and lots and lots of violence occurs. I guess you have to have a somewhat morbid sense of humor to laugh at ALL of the jokes in the film, but so what? There are also some nice little tongue-in-cheek references to the film's influences ("they messed with the wrong melon farmers").
The cast really give it their all. It was great to see James Franco back in a comedic role, and his performance steals the show. Rogen is good as usual, Gary Cole is a perfect villain, and it's nice to see the gorgeous and talented Amber Heard finally make a quality film (and get one of the film's funniest scenes as her character's final scene). The supporting cast are also all good in their roles.
There are a lot of reasons why "Pineapple Express" won't work for many people, and they will probably end up being the very reasons the film works for those who like it. The film's plot is inherently silly to an extent (although this is nowhere near the "Anchorman" style of comedy), and one must be prepared for an outright comedy and not something in the vein of "Knocked Up". "Pineapple Express" may end up being more enjoyable for stoners and those with friends who are stoners, but it works on its own as great comedy because the humor has much more range and scope than just marijuana. One of the best comedies in years.
9/10
195 of 341 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful to you?
| Report this
There will be many who will dismiss "Pineapple Express" as immature, overly silly, disjointed, and scatter-shot. There will be others who recognize it as a bizarrely artful, playful, loose genre-bending comedy with some outstanding performances, an inspired comedy script, and some great work from director David Gordon Green, certainly one of the finest young directors around.
The latter group is correct. "Pineapple Express" is, as a whole, the best movie the Apatow clan has produced yet. David Gordon Green is unquestionably the best director to direct one of these movies, but this is also a very different sort of movie than the films he usually directs. Does he rise to the challenge? He certainly does. I never would have believed that he was capable of directing such exciting and fun action scenes, or keep the movie's tone steady despite the different elements it consists of being so wildly disparate, but somehow he pulls it off. No other stoner movie can claim to be as artful and well-directed as this film.
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's much-anticipated follow-up to "Superbad" is an excellent screenplay, but expect none of the realism and resonance of that film; "Pineapple Express" is all about the laughs, and the laughs are certainly here, and they are practically non-stop, with just about every scene featuring some great dialogue, acting, or the sort of incredible sight gag this movie does so well. This is just great comedy throughout.
In addition to David Gordon Green's excellent work as director, the film is technically superb. The soundtrack and use of music is brilliant, and frequent Gordon Green collaborator Tim Orr's cinematography is consistently great.
"Pineapple Express" will be an inherently divisive film. It didn't get the sort of critical accolades many previous Apatow clan movies did, and I expect audiences will also be a little less unanimous. Indeed, there's little of the critic-pleasing dramatic scenes Apatow's comedies have been praised for, and even when they do pop up they're usually deflated instantly with a joke, and credit has to go to director David Gordon Green for his expert handling of the film's tone, which never becomes schmaltzy, thank the heavens. Really, the whole film is throughly enjoyable except for the very last scene in the film, which contains one of the film's best jokes, but is really hard to buy given the state the characters are in, and also more than a little forced. Aside from that moment the whole thing works beautifully, quite astounding given the mesh of many different genres and sorts of comedy that this is. You either go with this movies sense of humor or you don't, and I imagine more people will enjoy the first three quarters of the movie, before the big, long action scene happens, and lots and lots of violence occurs. I guess you have to have a somewhat morbid sense of humor to laugh at ALL of the jokes in the film, but so what? There are also some nice little tongue-in-cheek references to the film's influences ("they messed with the wrong melon farmers").
The cast really give it their all. It was great to see James Franco back in a comedic role, and his performance steals the show. Rogen is good as usual, Gary Cole is a perfect villain, and it's nice to see the gorgeous and talented Amber Heard finally make a quality film (and get one of the film's funniest scenes as her character's final scene). The supporting cast are also all good in their roles.
There are a lot of reasons why "Pineapple Express" won't work for many people, and they will probably end up being the very reasons the film works for those who like it. The film's plot is inherently silly to an extent (although this is nowhere near the "Anchorman" style of comedy), and one must be prepared for an outright comedy and not something in the vein of "Knocked Up". "Pineapple Express" may end up being more enjoyable for stoners and those with friends who are stoners, but it works on its own as great comedy because the humor has much more range and scope than just marijuana. One of the best comedies in years.
9/10