The Interview

The Interview is a great reminder why we should never go to war over a Seth Rogen movie, but we should go to the Cineplex for one.

Rogen stars as Aaron – the producer of a cable news program hosted by Dave Skylark (James Franco). Aaron is a journalism grad who dreams of joining the team at 60 Minutes some day, but has spent the last few years producing a program full of fluffy celebrity interviews and sensationalistic “news”.

However, Aaron is about to catch a break. It turns out the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un (Randall Park), is a huge Dave Skylark fan and wants to be on the show to demonstrate he is not the evil despot the western world knows him to be. This could be the biggest story of Dave and Aaron’s careers, but it is about to get bigger. The CIA, led by Agent Lacey (Lizzy Caplan), have recruited the duo to assassinate Kim Jong-un.

Can these two doofuses pull it off?

I don’t why so many people expected The Interview to be some sort of satire. It was never billed this way, and only had that mantle forced upon it as the controversy swirled. At its heart, The Interview is a typically silly movie from Rogen and Franco. It’s everything you would expect from these two, for good or for bad.

Written by Dan Sterling (with story contributions from directors Rogen and Evan Goldberg), The Interview is full of juvenile humor that repulses and humors you at every turn. This isn’t some high-minded take on global politics. It’s a movie full of naughty stuff that you are embarrassed to find humorous and the over use of some jokes that were funny the first time, but run out of gas by the 5th or 6th time you hear them.

Worst of all, Sterling and the gang never establish the motivation for Dave and Aaron to be so dedicated to the assassination plan, which becomes vitally necessary as the action unfolds and these two guys are more likely to abandon the plan.

While Aaron spouts off some facts about the treatment of North Koreans under this dictatorial regime, and Dave finds a personal reason to stay the course, none of it is compelling enough. These guys didn’t think about North Korea for one minute before the interview is scheduled, so we need more foundation for why each one of them decides the CIA plan is worthy as the plan falls apart. They aren’t patriotic. They aren’t cosmopolitan. They aren’t concerned about human rights.

Franco and Rogen make it work, but it is Park as the villain who saves The Interview. Rogen is funny as the reluctant serious guy who finds himself in the middle of an outrageous scenario, and gives a more consistent performance than Franco.

Sadly, Franco is left overselling the jokes and Skylark’s lack of intelligence about 50% of the time. He needs to dial it down instead of being so broad all of the time.

Yet, Park is perfect as the dictator who just wants to be loved, then shows his true colors. It’s a fantastic combination of vulnerability, silliness and pure evil. We start to see Kim Jong-un as this man-child with a complex about his father, but Park fills the character with the needed anger to carry out the climax.

The Interview is funny, so why not check it out, if you are not easily offended.

The Interview is rated R for pervasive language, crude and sexual humor, nudity, some drug use and bloody violence.