"You don't have to be an insider to see the humor in dopers' single-minded, never-ending quest for great grass." - Pauline Kael on UP IN SMOKE, 1978

Seriously. The Pauline Kael wrote that. Don't believe me? Here's a link. I really hope this was tethered to her pan of AUTUMN SONATA.

In any event, if the finickiest critic that ever critiqued was capable of chortling her way past UP IN SMOKE's many technical deficiencies (there's a reason legendary record producer Lou Adler only directed two films before settling down to become "The White-Haired Dude Who Sits Next to Jack Nicholson at Lakers Games"), then I think she would've been an easy mark for David Gordon Green's PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, which, if nothing else, has the distinction of being the most competently-shot stoner comedy in the history of film. Take that, um, HALF BAKED!

Whether Kael would've stuck with the film as it transitions from amiable Cheech & Chong homage to 1980s action-comedy goof is hard to call; I don't believe we ever got her thoughts on ARMED AND DANGEROUS (and we are poorer for that). But if you laughed your ass off at Steve Railsback plowing through stopped traffic in his semi truck because... he was running over a lot of cars for the fuck of it, then the raucous, giddily violent final third of PINEAPPLE EXPRESS should be a one-way ticket to delirium regardless of what you imbibed prior to (or during) the film.

Though Green's film is much more entertaining than the Reagan-era crap it's emulating, it's still powered by the kind of merely functional plotting that's been the hallmark of all-star comedy showcases since The Marx Brothers ran riot on Broadway. Basically, it's a wrong-place, wrong-time yarn in which Seth Rogen's cheerfully unambitious process server, Dale Denton, gets forced on the lam after he witnesses a murder while parked outside the swanky, 70s-style abode of ruthless drug trafficker Ted Jones (Gary Cole). Though Dale flees before Ted and his crooked cop sidekick/lover Carol (Rosie Perez) can get a visual ID, he leaves behind a still-smoldering joint packed with a very rare strain of weed that the crimelord just happens to be moving. Since Dale's perpetually baked dealer, Saul Silver (James Franco), is one of the few guys in town who's been supplied with "Pineapple Express", they're both sent scurrying. While it may be a stretch for Dale to piece together that the roach he abandoned at the scene of the crime will be the linkage that sends Ted's squabbling hit men (Kevin Corrigan and Craig Robinson) to Saul's apartment, the pleasure of watching Rogen play easily flustered straight man to Franco's sensitive-and-childlike clown more than excuses the contrivance. Once again, the film's primary reason for being is the assembled talent, not the story. (My apologies if you enjoy CADDYSHACK for the hardscrabble hero's journey of Danny Noonan.)

There is a notion early on that Rogen as a scumbag working stiff could be a great jumping-off point for some unflattering character-based comedy, but after an amusing, "Electric Avenue" scored opening credit sequence (which finds Rogen amiably ruining folks' days with the gift of subpoena), we quickly realize that Dale is is just another likable schlub. Sure, it's a little discomfitting to watch him make out with his high school girlfriend (as an even schlubbier covetous Joe Lo Truglio ogles and scolds), but one look at Amber Heard mitigates the ick factor. Dale's bad judgment could be a helluva lot uglier. (If they really wanted to challenge the audience's goodwill, they would've cast a bookish, Elisabeth Moss type.)

But this isn't Rogen's film to dominate, and he seems to be entirely comfortable with that. The real star of PINEAPPLE EXPRESS is Franco, whose considerable gifts have been wasted on pretty boy caricatures for far too long. With Saul, he finally gets to inhabit a full-blown eccentric in a movie that's guaranteed to be seen by more than ten people, and the sense of liberation is infectious. For Saul, life is constant discovery (as it is for many stoners who've smoked away their short-term memory); even a rerun of 227 holds the potential for (fleetingly held) wisdom. And while he seems distrustful of most of his clients (he doesn't seem to get out of his horrendously decorated apartment much), he's always happy when Dale comes around. Why? Because Dale - despite his buy-and-dash tendencies - is probably the only guy who's as interested in the history of Saul's "cross-joint" as he is in smoking it (which hastens a brief-but-learned disquisition on Saul's favorite civil engineers).

Since the common bond between Dale and Saul is a finer appreciation for killer weed, most of the actual pot humor is front-loaded into the film's first act. Once the chase is on, the comedy mostly grows out of the boys' inability to defend themselves or simply stay out of harm's way. Out of desperation, they seek assistance from Red (Danny McBride), a low-level associate of Ted's whose interior design sense is about as addled as Saul's. But by the time they get to Red, he's already sold them out to Ted's henchmen, which leads to a painfully uncoordinated brawl that recalls the wanton property destruction of Nic Cage versus John Goodman in RAISING ARIZONA. The aftermath of this fracas also sets up a running joke that nudges the film into absurdism: Red is apparently immortal.

It's a damn good thing, too, since McBride essentially takes over once the ganja gives way to gunplay. Some might be disappointed to see the movie opt for a meta commentary on bad 80s action, but there's something fascinating about watching a nuanced filmmaker like Green indulge his inner Sheldon Lettich; though it drowns out and renders irrelevant the character development of the film's first phase (which wasn't exactly grounded in Cassavetes-like verisimilitude to begin with), it's comforting to know that critically acclaimed auteurs have an affinity for trash, too. Maybe this will empower Olivier Assayas to give up the DV noodling and make his CANNONBALL RUN. We need the high and the low. Would the meditation and melancholy of TOKYO STORY wouldn't mean half as much if we didn't have a little SHARKY'S MACHINE in our diet? What is Ozu without Dar Robinson?

So PINEAPPLE EXPRESS doesn't derail as much as it unexpectedly jumps tracks. It's like setting course for New Haven and ending up in Tuscaloosa: ain't no Yale in sight, but there are plenty of places to get drunk. Then again, stoner comedies have always followed a circuitous, where-the-high-takes-you trajectory: very often, they tend toward episodic (as is the case with most Cheech & Chong efforts); other times, they just amble into another sub-genre altogether. It's slop art, and, in the case of PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, it works. Kael would've loved this shit.

Faithfully submitted,

Mr. Beaks