'Without a Paddle': There's no deliverance in this gross-out comedy

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Friday, August 20, 2004

'Without a Paddle': There's no deliverance in this gross-out comedy

By SEAN AXMAKER
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Imagine "Deliverance" as a PG-13 slapstick cartoon for 13-year-old boys. Better yet, don't.

MOVIE REVIEW

WITHOUT A PADDLE

DIRECTOR: Steven Brill

CAST: Seth Green, Matthew Lillard, Dax Shepard, Burt Reynolds

RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes

RATING: PG-13 for drug content, sexual material, language, crude humor and some violence

WHERE: Bella Bottega 11, Cinema 17, Crossroads 8, East Valley 13, Everett 9, Factoria, Galleria 11, Gateway 8, Grand Cinemas, Issaquah 9, Longston Place 14, Marysville Cinema 14, Mountlake 9, Oak Tree, Pacific Place, Parkway Plaza 12, Valley Drive-in, Woodinville 12.

GRADE: D

See the photo gallery.

"Without a Paddle" is yet another raunchy, gross-out farce, this one about smart-alecky city boys who have wacky adventures while exposing themselves in -- I mean to -- the great outdoors.

Dan (Seth Green) is a fussy, phobia-ridden physician with a fondness for "Star Wars" and Boy George songs; Jerry (Matthew Lillard) is a commitment-shy executive who escapes the boredom of the family business by surfing; and champion underachiever Tom (Dax Shepard) is a pathological liar.

The three boyhood buddies reunite 10 years after high school graduation to attend the funeral of the fourth member of their childhood quartet. To honor his memory, they turn a canoe trip into a treasure hunt for the missing fortune stolen by real-life outlaw folk hero D.B. Cooper, who parachuted into the Pacific Northwest wilderness in 1971 and disappeared.

It's a campfire recipe for disaster even before they collide with a pair of sneering, slovenly, likely inbred dope-farming brothers in the deep backwoods. These drawling dim bulbs, equipped with ATVs and armed with enough firepower to overthrow a small Latin American nation, are the film's 21st-century update of the vengeful hillbillies of "Deliverance."

Would you believe that they each face their greatest fears on their survivalist adventure? That they cross paths with a maternal grizzly, a pair of tree-hugging hippie chicks in a old-growth treehouse, and a grizzled mountain man played by Burt Reynolds? That this is all hysterically funny?

Just kidding on that last one. Director Steven Brill takes their tale of personal growth so seriously that he tends to beach the film when it should be shooting the rapids. The actors, while lacking the chemistry to persuade us that they are best friends, underplay the juvenile material to often good effect. The results are hardly side-splitting, but they manage to spring a few dumb, goofy laughs in a lazy comedy largely devoid of surprises or wit.

Sean Axmaker is a movie reviewer and free-lance film writer based in Seattle. He can be reached via e-mail at seanax@hotmail.com.