The Interview

 As I've stated before, I'm not the biggest Seth Rogen fan. Some of his films are ones that didn't seem to fit in with me, with most of it being either stoner jokes or anything like that. But some films that have been released since this decade have been pretty funny, and earlier this year, I loved “Neighbors,” which was a riot.

This brings us to “The Interview,” the second film that he and his friend, Evan Goldberg, wrote and directed. What caught my curiosity the most, was the controversy surrounding this film. I mean, I expected there to be controversy since it's a film about two guys killing Kim Jung Un, but this went WAY beyond what I thought it was going to be. With Sony's recent hackings, it lead to the pulling of the film's release, especially since most mainstream theater chains refused to show it. However, it's Christmas Day as I'm writing this, and the film has been given the theatrical release...in limited theaters, that is. The film is available online, with sites like YouTube and Google Play showing them, so you have the opportunity to see it for yourselves.

So, what DID I think of this film where Seth Rogen and James Franco attempt to assassinate the leader of North Korea? Well, I thought it was enjoyable. It's not as good as, say “This is the End” or “Neighbors” though, but I do enjoy it nonetheless.

In this film, James Franco plays Dave Skylark, a talk show host who is given the opportunity to interview Kim Jung Un, who happens to be a fan of his show. He and his producer/friend, Aaron Rapoport, are then picked up by the CIA to assassinate him, by giving him a lethal dose of poison, but secretly enough that no one would notice at all. And if you saw the trailers for this film, you would know that things don't quite go as planned, but that's for you guys to see the movie.

What really worked in this film is the chemistry between Franco and Rogen. You do buy their friendship together, and they do have some memorable moments between one another. With Rogen's straight-man character working off of Franco's idiot persona, which we've seen before when they did “Pineapple Express.” Just seeing Franco pull some dumbass move and seeing Rogen's reaction to it, or vice versa, is hilarious almost every time. I also love how they take more shots at the media than they do with North Korea. They talk about topics like Eminem being gay, Rob Lowe being bald, all that stuff that only people at TMZ could give a shit about...seriously, fuck TMZ.

The only problems I do have with the film are with the 2^nd act in the film. It started to run off a bit slow, there weren't that many jokes that clicked in with me, and I felt like somethings could have been cut out. If you trimmed down the 2^nd act a bit, it would have made the film an easy hour and forty-minutes, which is fine. But, by the time the 3^rd act rolled around, with the said interview, it got to be funny again. It's just so batshit-insane how much could go right, and how much could go wrong at the same time, all because these two incompetent guys who do interviews on bottom of the barrel topics.

Overall, “The Interview” is a film that's worth checking out. It's not quite as funny as it could have gotten, but with what we're given, it's not too bad. If you're interested, it's just a click away at your computer. But if you're that eager to find a theater that DOES play the film, then good luck finding one.

And with that said, Happy Holidays everybody! But if you've got a problem with “Happy Holidays,” then Happy Shut-the-fuck-up!

Rating: 7/10