We’re The Millers Review

Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber.

Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudeikis, Emma Roberts, Will Poulter, Ed Helms, Nick Offerman, Kathryn Hahn.

Running Time: 110 minutes.

Certificate: 15.

Synopsis: When small-time drug dealer David (Jason Sudeikis) is robbed, he is forced to take on a dangerous drug smuggling operation to clear his debt. To make it past the border, he decides to pose as a clean cut family with stripper-neighbour Rose (Jennifer Aniston), local runaway Casey (Emma Roberts) and shy teen Kenny (Will Poulter) as his fake wife, daughter and son.

You know when you see Michael Fassbender in JONAH HEX, or Jessica Ennis in those Santander adverts, and you think, “Oh, I like you. But these are awful. These do you no favours.” WE’RE THE MILLERS is just like that. The four actors at the centre of this substandard gross-out road movie are all really good, but the film isn’t. It could have been, but it isn’t.

As the thrown together family on a drug smuggling jaunt to Mexico, Aniston, Sudeikis, Roberts and Poulter have a lot of chemistry, and their comic timing is tiptop. But the writing. Oh, the writing is bloody awful. The script is a constant stream of poorly constructed profanity and half-arsed pop culture references. So it’s basically a Seth MacFarlane movie, except the writers at least attempt to give some jokes to women.

When it comes to female representation, the movie takes one step forward and two steps back. For instance, it passes the Bechdel Test, which is a rare feat in itself. We have Emma Roberts playing Casey, a teenage girl who is smart, funny and, amazingly, not sexualised at all at any point. Aniston’s Rose is equally smart, inventive, punches out the bad guys and, while she is a stripper, has agency over her body, is not ashamed and has self respect. But the director and all four (that’s four) screenwriters let it all go tits-up by rampantly objectifying her. They seem to say, “You know this really funny woman who’s playing what could be an interesting character? Well LOOK AT HER TITS! AND HER ARSE! PHWOOAR, EH? ARSE, EH? TITS, EH? PHWOOOOAR!!” In the first act, it makes sense for the narrative to have her scenes at the strip club, even if they linger too much on her body. But the gratuitous strip scene in the garage later on is pure ‘BabeStation’ and it’s simply horrible. Laura Mulvey would WEEP at how the camera leers over her, reducing the actor to a series of body parts, as men watch her dance for their pleasure. The audience and Aniston herself deserve much better.

Sudeikis is fine, if a little forgettable, while Ed Helms from THE HANGOVER is howlingly unfunny as drug lord, Brad. Will Poulter, on the other hand, is a cracking little comedy actor. You may remember him from SON OF RAMBOW or the terrific E4 adult sketch show with an all-child cast, SCHOOL OF COMEDY. He’s done alright for himself and deserves the exposure this film will grant him. We will no doubt see more of young Will.

However, the film belongs to Nick Offerman and Kathryn Hahn as All-American RV enthusiasts Don and Edie. Their conservative couple border on wacky neighbor territory, but they are by far the funniest aspect to this film and bring a surprising amount of humanity to proceedings, which is clearly intended for our four leads. But it all gets lost in a fog of crudity. Now I’m all for smutty humour and filthy language, but it needs to be clever, inventive and, hopefully, have some heart behind it. This does not apply to WE’RE THE MILLERS.

When a film banks on being ‘outrageous’, ‘lewd and crude’, and other lazy marketing slogans, it should reach for the pinnacle of DUMB & DUMBER and avoid the pitfalls of all recent Adam Sandler output. Though this is hardly as bad as THAT’S MY BOY, it’s pretty bad. What makes it worse is that it had potential to be so much better. It could have wallowed in the glorious mud of dirty humour. Instead it just stinks. Great cast, bad film.

WE’RE THE MILLERS is released in UK cinemas on Friday August 23rd.