Cinemazlowski Movie Review - "Snatched"

May 12, 2017

Considering her status as a comedy icon spanned four decades, from her start on the 1960s TV sketch-comedy series "Laugh-In" through her last movie "The Banger Sisters" in 2002, it's surprising that Goldie Hawn chose to walk away from acting and drop off the pop culture radar for the past 15 years. It's nearly as surprising that she chose the often crass and lowbrow new comedy "Snatched" as her comeback film, although the movie gives her the chance to reach the generation of viewers she missed out on by teaming her with current comedy superstar Amy Schumer. 
   
"Snatched" pairs the two as mother and daughter, with Schumer playing an aimless woman named Emily, whose laziness and bad attitude cause her to get fired from her job and dumped by her boyfriend in the same day. The breakup comes just as the couple was supposed to go on a nonrefundable vacation to Ecuador, and Emily has burned so many bridges with friends that she can't find anyone else to travel with her.

Emily's mom, Linda, has largely drifted into her senior years with a lost spark for living. Her agoraphobic loser son Jeffrey (Ike Barinholtz) sponges off her completely, and she constantly interferes in Emily's life. But when Emily finds an old photo album filled with images and mementos of her mom's vibrantly adventurous younger days before motherhood, she invites her along in the hopes that she can help revive her spirits.

Once at their resort, however, Linda refuses to snap out of her depression, choosing to read trashy novels while a bored Emily meets a suspiciously good-looking British man named James (Tom Bateman) at the bar. After a wild night of partying, Tom invites Emily out for a day trip into the jungle, and Emily convinces Linda to come along.

The trip takes a disastrous turn when Tom's truck is smashed into by another truck in a backwater village and the two ladies wake up in a cell to find they're being held for ransom by a shady criminal named Morgado (Oscar Jaenada). After a ridiculous escape, they find that they have to get themselves to the nearest US embassy in Bogota, Colombia, if they ever hope to get rescued.

That journey is marked by a series of odd encounters with lazy or confused State Department workers by phone and in-person misadventures with a village doctor and an American jungle guide (Christopher Meloni) whom Emily and Linda soon realize is insane. They also have to contend with two other female travelers (Wanda Sykes and Joan Cusack) who keep interfering with their plans but turn out to have some unique skills.

While all these hijinks should have resulted in an inventive and funny film, the script by Katie Dippold – who proved she could write a hit female-driven action-comedy with 2013's "The Heat" – is extremely uneven. "Snatched" opens strongly as it details Emily's comically pathetic life, but she soon becomes more annoying than amusing, and director Jonathan Levine's odd pacing causes the jungle scenes to alternate between high comic energy and other moments that are obvious padding.

Strangely, once the opening minutes focused on Schumer's disastrous daily life pass, the film's funniest moments are provided by its oddball supporting characters, particularly Barinholtz and Meloni. The grossest scene, in which a village doctor comes up with an unpleasant means of eradicating a tapeworm that Schumer acquired in the jungle, is admittedly funny yet cringe-inducing, but viewers will likely not feel proud of themselves afterward for laughing.

The same can be said for the numerous sexual references in the film's first half-hour, including one offensive moment that viewers will likely wish they had never seen. There's also quite a bit of foul language throughout the film, and a few moments of comic violence such as Schumer clocking a bad guy in the head with a shovel that can't be taken seriously. 
 
Hawn manages to land some sporadic laughs and also has a couple of solid serious moments as Linda admits her disappointments in life, and Schumer works her klutzy-loser persona well for the most part. Ultimately, though, viewers may wish they had snatched the opportunity to see another film – and there's certainly nicer and classier ways to treat mom to a fun outing this Mother's Day weekend.    

This movie is rated R.

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