David Aldridge has, to quote the Radio Times, “spent the past 30 years watching square and rectangular screens” in an effort to hone his critical scrutiny of the week’s selection of cinematic fare. At the pleasure of the Great British licence fee-payer, David Aldridge is currently at the helm of BBC Radio Five Live’s weekly film and DVD phone-in programme, as well as a former editor of Film Review magazine. In short, David Aldridge is a professional, and thus, David Aldridge’s byline rides high on the poster of Cedar Rapids, blazing a guiding light to would be moviegoers of the virtues of the film, like some sort of cinephilic pharos amid the murky blockbusters of the Megaplex…
“… if you liked The Hangover you’ll love this” - David Aldridge, BBC Radio 5 Live
Ladies and gentlemen, David Aldridge is an idiot.
Okay, so it’s been over three weeks since I saw Cedar Rapids in, rather aptly given the above trolling, a somewhat hungover state, so my ability to form a panache-laden introduction has been somewhat limited. In times like these one falls back on the latent transferable skills acquired through a four-year arts degree, and using the Text Analysis savvy procured on the 5th floor of the Arts’ block on Fridays at 9am, I turned my eye to Cedar Rapids’ poster. And I was struck by my learned, and paid for this shit, friend’s blurb and how completely wrong and misleading it is.
Only on paper, perhaps, could such a commendation pass muster. Cedar Rapids is the story of Hangover alumnus Ed Helm’s Tim Lippe, a genuine Midwestern Mr.-Nice-Guy who, after his boss’ hush-hush alluded-to demise by autoerotic asphyxiation, finally gets the chance to stop finishing last. Leaving his small town for the first time, he heads for the bright lights of the titular Rapids, to attend an annual insurance conference and claim the much-coveted Two Diamonds Award. There, he’ll be tempted from his wholesome John-Boy bashfulness by wildcat fellow insurance agents John C. Reilly, Anne Heche and Isiah Whitlock, Jr., most famous for his elongated number twos as Sen. Clay Davis on The Wire.
Rapids, the latest offering from Puerto Rican director Miguel Arteto, follows the worn path of Arteto’s previous work, detailing in a mildly comedic and awkward fashion the everyday drama of the American middleclass. Having whet his appetite on the likes of Freaks & Geeks, Six Feet Under and the Jennifer Aniston starrer The Good Girl, Arteto creates an engaging, if occasionally too nicey-nicey, story, where we get to share in the fun as Lippe and co. loosen shirt-collars and begin to have some middle-management mayhem.
Helms is great in the lead, his years of playing second fiddle in The Office lending his timid Tim a genuine likeability, whereby you can’t but root for him to just go tamely wild. Credit too to John C. Reilly, surprisingly fresh as yet another wild child, his Ziegler played for cheap laughs, but without any malice in his drunken pranks. Anne Heche is particularly good as Joan, the sex-kitten soccer mom, you’ll be wondering why you never see her in anything anymore, and Cedar Rapids continues the 2011: The Year Cinema Goes Meta trend, with Whitlock amusingly parodying his wiry past with direct references to his old HBO haunting ground.
It’s all very harmless fun, with perhaps too much gentle humour to make it really lasting.
And, to be honest, if you liked three lads getting shit-faced in Vegas with Mike Tyson’s tiger, this probably isn’t your thing.
I should be on a poster.
I'd settle for paid. Please.
3 ½ likes.
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