Oh, the life of a Hollywood movie exec, how I’ve wanted to know how they pull it off. The life of these hot-shot millionaires must be incredibly stressful. I can imagine the pitch for this movie was the last one the Exec did, before he voluntarily checked himself in to a psych ward. After reading one too many World War Two docudrama, and nearly pulling his hair out after going through another rewrite of Saw XXX, the poor guy must have snapped. He probably thought he was having another hallucination when the secretary came into the room with the announcement.
“Sir, your 2 o’clock sit down with Jon Cusak on that new movie he’s producing is ready to go.” The secretary reveals Mr. Cusak with some no name director. Jon personally hands him the script, a big, dumb smirk on his face. He reads the title.
“Jon, you can’t be serious?”
Cusak nods.
The Exec cries. The tears turn into a mad cackle. He throws down the script.
“A hot tub, and it travels back in time? FAST TRACK THIS!” The Exec is never heard from again.
Yes, the concept is a stupid one. But looking at the trailer, it actually looks pretty good. First off, they made the wise choice of going with mostly older men. Accompanying Cusack through this fun romp back to 1986 is Rob Corddry, formerly on the Daily Show, Craig Robinson, who plays Darryl from the Office, and Clark Duke from Greek. The gist of the movie is as follows. Three friends, and one of the friends’ dorky nephew decide to spend an otherwise listless weekend at the ski hill where they shared some of the best times of their youth. After sneaking into a private suite, they party in the hot tub and, surprise, surprise, it takes them back to a festival in 1986, the same winter carnival they attended. The dorky nephew tries to think of a way back while the other three try to make up with the women they ended up hurting that carnival. While a semi-boring sounding plot, the quality of actors really helps. Add to the mix Crispin Glover, and Chevy Chase and this makes sure that there is the promise of hilarity from these usually funny people. Bonus is that it won’t end up with as much of a stupid sex romp that it would have been if it were filled with no-name teen actors; more of a tasteful sex romp. And with the R rating, you know that there is going to be a lot of blow in this movie; as would any ski hill in the mid eighties.
Another plus I see from this movie is the fact that they are self aware that the movie premise is incredibly ridiculous. But that could also be the movie’s downfall if it relied too heavily on the fact that it’s a stupid premise to squeeze laughs out of the audience. But I have some faith that this won’t be so bad. I would put it on par with The Hangover in terms of style and amount of comedy, but I keep forgetting that people go absolutely loony for that movie. A hint above mediocre, but enjoyable to say the least. Hot Tub Time Machine will be making a splash March 19th.
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