MIDNIGHT REVIEWS Ricky Stanicky
Midnight Reviews features reviews and thought pieces written and edited by a parent, at night, after bedtime.
Ricky Stanicky (1hr 53mins)
Directed by: Peter Farrelly
Featuring: Zac Efron, John Cena, Jermaine Fowler, Andrew Santino
Synopsis: Following a prank gone wrong, three childhood friends invent ‘Ricky Stanicky.’ They use the made-up character as someone to blame when things go wrong or, as they grow older, they want things their own way.
Review: The premise for Ricky Stanicky is born as three friends attempt to prank someone. When things go wrong and they burn this person’s house down, one of them hurriedly writes the titular name on the back of a discarded shirt before running away. The police search for this Stanicky and the three boys get off scot-free.
An animation follows showing a montage of different ways these three friends have used the character of Ricky to both get out of trouble and have an excuse to enjoy life a little more. It’s here that the film promises a rip-roaring romp where the focus is more on jokes, outlandishness and the tension that comes from others stumbling onto the secret.
Cena is the MVP.
The routine follows the three friends into adulthood. Dean (Efron, seemingly in the middle of The Iron Claw as he looks distractingly huge) and JT (Santino) are gathered around the kitchen and quickly we see the routine the three boys use to get out of a baby shower and into the front row of a show in Atlantic City thanks to some sneaky work by Wes (Fowler). Whilst there, they encounter put-upon actor Rod (Cena), a desperate man. He tries his best to chat them up and ultimately gives Dean his business card whilst hiding from some people who want to do some not nice things to him. Thus, a setup is complete.
Like in The Iron Claw, Efron is the de facto star, but Cena is the MVP. His character of Rock Hard Rod has a hilariously aggressive and stupid X-rated musical act that would make Weird Al cry. It’s here and next to a dumpster that we see Rod in full flow, licking booze off a discarded cardboard box after telling his version of One Thousand and One Wank Puns to a bored audience. He’s given a lifeline when Dean, forced to find a real Ricky Stanicky, hires Rod to play the man no one has met, but everyone knows about.
What follows is a solid caper as Rod takes liberties with his assignment and threatens to reveal the big secret. This is due to both Rod’s own aspirations and his own awful background. Whilst the film could’ve stuck with playing it for laughs, the depiction of alcoholism is on the whole relatively accurate with Rod twitchy and sweaty when we first see him as Ricky. Cena is entirely effective as someone who knows this is a last chance at success and has moments of genuine pathos. He’s also hilarious without having to mug or fall over.
We get pulled in two directions.
What sells itself as another Tag or Hangover ends up attempting to be a little deeper. The problem it encounters is that just like Rock Hard Rod, the film is trying to be two things at once. When it’s in Stanicky mode, the film excels at amusing, surprising sequences such as a rabbi performing a tricky circumcision and two loan sharks who just won’t quit. But when it’s in Rod mode, the film’s attempts at serious moments are nothing more than emotional manipulation that falls short.
Dean has two minutes where he’s a bit sad. Wes struggles to find direction until he doesn’t. And JT is a thoroughly unlikeable asshole. The issue is, is that these characters would work in a film that focuses purely on jokes-per-minute, but Ricky Stanicky can’t reconcile the differences in its personalities.
Once you realise that the film is attempting to make these characters anything more than two-dimensional, it begins to fall apart. JT, instead of being the archetypal loudmouth, is pulled into the light as a manipulator that we’re supposed to root for. Wife Susan (Anja Savcic) is unbelievably skinny just days after giving birth and her defining trait is a slightly whiny voice. And yes, whilst his mother-in-law seems like a horrible person, it stems from the fact that she’s been right about Ricky Stanicky the entire time.
So in the end, we get pulled in two directions, not just in mood but in terms of who we should back. Rod is so likeable and clearly wants to do his best (he gives up drinking because the character he’s playing, Ricky, is also sober; he researches a complex, seemingly-unrelated business merger because it’s something Ricky might possibly know about). But the three people he’s been hired by are terrible people. In the end, the film tries to revert back to being two-dimensional but by then its silliness and excessive change of heart is too late.
I never thought I’d write this in a review, but it would’ve been better if Ricky Stanicky had kept its characters as fake as the Ricky character everyone else believes in. In trying to beef up their characters, the film makers have revealed nothing more than three little boys who have the flimsiest of rationalisations for continuing horrendous behaviour when really we should’ve been laughing at the situational constrictions the three could’ve twisted themselves into. Ricky Stanicky is hilarious in some places, but feels like a missed opportunity.
Ricky Stanicky is available to view on Amazon Prime. The advert in the middle was weird.
Matthew D. Smith likes to overshare his views on movies whenever and wherever he can. Indulge him, and follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Smith_M_D
