It wasn’t that long ago that I had very little interest in seeing a movie called ROLE MODELS. It seemed from the first trailer to be a saccharine sweet buddy film about grown children that learn to become MEN. And that stuff, like saccharine… gives ya cancer. I’m serious. If you just watch films about juvenile young men putting their childish sides aside… you will develop EYE CANCER. There’s a group of lobbyists that work for me in Washington trying to get WARNING STICKERS to place on films of this type that would say: WARNING: WATCHING THIS FILM IS A LEADING CONTRIBUTOR TO EYE CANCER, alas with the current Lobby Reforms in place, it’s getting harder to hire Escorts to blow legislation into law.

Then I saw the Red-Band Trailer for this film and realized… OMG – that little kid cusses!!! Now I don’t know about you, but small children that cuss and bitch slap adults. That’s like catnip for the Left Frontal Funny Lobe of the brain. It causes involuntary joygasms that riddle the body and leave one laughing like that piano music lover from REEFER MADNESS. Well, at least that’s how it affects me.

Now, if this film was just about Bobb’e J. Thompson – who is every bit as awesome as Gary Coleman was in his heyday – I’d have been completely happy, but Director David Wain and writer/actor/Titanic-expert Paul Rudd – well they’ve come up with a film that is sweet, but exquisitely wrong on several fronts.

Our two leads, Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott play two very different fellas that have spent a decade working together. Paul is that cynical life hater that’s just lost his long term girlfriend, which added to his already miserable existence as a Front Man for the Energy Drink MINOTAUR pushes him over the edge. Meanwhile you have Seann William Scott, who is the man in the Minotaur costume – and he feels he has the greatest job on the planet. He gets to dress up in a badass Minotaur costume and turn folks on to the best Energy Drink in the world that is good for you because it has JUICE in it. After their initial calamity lands them in a position of facing some time in jail or doing community service in a “Big Brothers Big Sisters”-like organization – they decide to do the latter.

That’s how they meet Bobb’e J. Thompson’s Ronnie Shields, a tiny boy obsessed with giving grown-ups shit and boobies…. And (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) McLovin’s Augie Farks (greatest name 2nd to McLovin) who is a Larp-loving fantasists that lives with redneck mundanes that think he’s probably doomed to loving boys in tights.

Seann gets Bobb’e and Paul gets McLovin – and we get to see these two, very different relationships form.

At one level, I love the Seann and Bobb’e relationship, simply because it is the most subversive. Rather than trying to stop the boy’s predilection with insults and tits – Seann’s character helps him to understand and develop beyond a boy’s understanding. To teach him how to stare at boobies, without staring. To understand the subtle ways sex has been woven into the bards of our age, KISS. I also love how this relationship goes wrong as well.

Then there’s that Paul Rudd one. The LARP-ing aspect is great. It isn’t done to make fun of LARPers, but rather as a celebration of their particular oddness. The final battle is epic, but actually everytime we enter the realm of the LARPers – this film oddly rules at a level I wasn’t expecting. Paul and Davin Wain really did a great job of showing how one could love this rather odd , yet colorful hobby life.

Is there a sweetness to the film, yeah, but the great thing is the Grown Up kids don’t have to cease being childish, but to simply embrace their childish ways and the childish ways of children, to reach a better understanding of life in general.

This film is hilarious throughout. Another strong comedy for 2008, it’s a good thing the films are so funny, cuz the world needs as much laughter and funny as it can muster these days.

While this may be a film about Grown Ups and Kids, this is definitely an Adult aimed comedy. It’s filthy and fun. Check it out when you get a chance.