After having proven his writing chops with Superbad and convincing Hollywood to let him write whatever he wants, Rogen and his Superbad co-writer Evan Goldberg set their eyes on bringing pot culture back into the mainstream by tackling it head-on. This time, Rogen isn’t just playing a pothead to evoke his character’s state of arrested development. Pot is also part of the plot.
Pineapple Express is a movie about marijuana that references the substance both affectionately and demeaningly. Trouble starts when pothead Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) accidentally witnesses a drug kingpin (Gary Cole) and a crooked cop (Rosie Perez) murder a rival gang member. In his panicked escape, Dale drops the joint he was smoking, which the villains then recognized as a rare strain of marijuana called Pineapple Express. They trace the weed back to Dale’s dealer Saul Silver (James Franco), forcing the two hapless stoners to flee around town with mob hitmen hot on their asses.
During an Inside the Actor’s Studio interview a couple of years ago, Dave Chappelle admitted his disappointment with Half-Baked, regretting that he let the director turn his script into “a weed movie for kids.” What Chappelle originally intended was a more adult-oriented film, perhaps somewhat like Pineapple Express, where even though it’s a stoner comedy, the drug deals still glow harshly and the violence is not at all softened (it earns the R-rating). Not to say that Pineapple Express takes its crime plot seriously, but it doesn’t view drugs through cartoon goggles like Half-Baked. Indie drama sensation David Gordon Green, in a bizarre collaboration, is the director of this film. He gave it an unsettling mood throughout, even intersecting the uncharacteristic action and comedy with contemplative montage sequences. The result is something that one can only imagine succeeding as a cult video hit.
Although Harold & Kumar finally portrayed a pair of potheads who are smart and productive, Pineapple Express brings the sleaze back. Unfortunate, but such a portrayal fits the edgier story better. Dale smokes all day and slobbers over a high school girl, while Saul behaves like a permanently baked slacker who never quite grasped reality. These aren’t exactly model heroes, but Rogen and Goldberg have a knack for making sleazeballs charming (they did write an entire movie about two losers who want to lose their virginity by date-raping drunk girls). Dale and Saul start off as reluctant acquaintances—Dale observes early on that dealers always want to hang out and be your friend, even though they’re not—but, as a tribute to the homoeroticism of buddy action movies, they grow exceedingly fond of one another after a series of trials, as always. It’s a lot like Superbad, except the genuineness of the main characters is replaced by shootouts and car chases.
Throughout the movie, the duo muse several times as to why marijuana should be legalized. A brilliant black-and-white opening scene that takes place in the 30s even makes a mockery of the federal law against marijuana use, showing Bill Hader being forced to smoke weed by the government to see the drug’s effects. When he turns into a giggling foul-mouthed rebel, the verdict is decided: ILLEGAL. Despite this pro-weed policy that they clearly wanted to address, however, Rogen and Goldberg seem reluctant to fully condone the lifestyle, portraying it as a dead-end street full of paranoia and bad decisions. It’s a little odd, because Rogen and Goldberg are obviously more comfortable with the meandering drug talks than the chase format of the film. Pineapple Express’ suspense relies too much on its heroes being paranoid of everything. Its sense of humor, as a whole, is an acquired taste of the wacky tobaccy kind, often favoring inside references to pot culture than broad jokes. It has no problem wasting screen time to pander to its 420 audience (there’s a very long scene of the two just sitting around a couch, talking about weed and enthusiastically lighting joints, which tells you about its priority). The highlight of the film is James Franco embracing his stereotypical Spicoli-esque role to natural perfection—half of his dialogue are just him repeating words others say to him like he’s trying to decipher them.
Pineapple Express separates itself from Rogen’s more endearing films by willfully making a joke out of real emotional connections. Dale’s relationship with his teenage girlfriend seems to exist in the film solely to affirm that guys should stick with guys and chicks only complicate matters—a reversal from Knocked Up. This is a movie that’s just waiting to be released on DVD, just so stoners everywhere can have a solution to the mounting problem of watching movies like Midnight Run high and thinking, “This movie needs more weed in it.”
"Pineapple Express" opens August 6, 2008 and is rated R. Comedy, Thriller. Directed by David Gordon Green. Written by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg. Starring Danny R McBride, Gary Cole, James Franco, Seth Rogen, Rosie Perez.
