Role Models is a 2008 comedy about a pair of energy drink reps who are forced to enroll in a Big Brother program that changes theirs lives.
I’m guessing you remember the first time you saw Jane Lynch, even if you didn’t remember her name. There you were, enjoying an already good movie when *BAM*, you got smacked right in the funny bone courtesy of a Lynchian come back. The woman is straight up high octane giggle fuel, but in a sort of “wait, what exactly is that flavor?” kind of way. Amiright?
And now I’m going to hit you with a little, “she was?” BAM of my own, ’cause she actually got her start in dramas, for keen eyed viewers in fact, a blink or you’ll miss it serious cameo in Harrison Ford‘s The Fugitive as a doctor of all things. It wasn’t until seven years later that most would get their first real taste of her comedy in Lynch’s career-changing turn in the Christopher Guest mockumentary Best In Show (2000) as Christy Cummings. I mean that was a funny movie with a big cast of comedy heavy weights, but Lynch pulls off a real coup and manages to be the ‘unknown’ everyone remembered. There was this immediate explosive presence about her comedy, this kind of awkward oversized lankiness to her movements and “I’m in on the joke” role of the eyes that made it clear her character really wasn’t. It was like nothing we’d seen before, and she did it again with Guest’s 2005 A Mighty Wind and then again in Judd Apatow‘s The 40-Year-Old Virgin. You simply can’t take your eyes off her.
While Lynch has spent far more time on television than in movies since, especially of late with hit roles on Glee and Criminal Minds, when she does show up on the big screen, it’s like stumbling upon lost treasure. Such is the case for the 2009 comedy Role Models, where Lynch stars as Sweeny, the founder of “Sturdy Wings,” a kind of Big Brothers/ Big Sisters organization to match children with mentors. She runs a tight ship, comes from a tough background, and demands the best from her “bigs”. And she’s no BS-er, as she tells the boys. No BS-er indeed.
The movie stars Seann William Scott as Wheeler, a pumped up high-on-life fellow who works at an energy drink company with Danny, played by Paul Rudd, his complete opposite. The two get themselves into a spot of trouble, mostly because Danny is ludicrously unhappy, and end up facing jail time, though his recent lawyer ex-girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks) manages to get them community service. Enter, Sturdy Wings.
Sweeny is everything you expect in a woman with a dark past who channels her energies into helping kids, and Lynch plays it to Mach 2, ‘seeing through’ Danny and Wheeler, holding over them her power to cut them loose and straight to jail with all kinds of relish. She’s a former drug addict who seems to have some lingering after effects, never quite on the same page with everyone, clearly trying to overcompensate for what she sees as weakness. It’s very funny, mostly because Lynch commits to it with absolute abandon, obviously fearless of doing anything for a laugh. Not mostly. Totally.
Imagine a movie that stars the nearly incomparable Rudd in a role he is poured from a mold for and finding yourself looking forward to when someone else is on screen. Yeah, yeah, Rudd is awesome because duh, whichever mad scientist created him in that lab cracked the formula and saved mankind, but Lynch’s intermittent comings and goings is like manna, or at least those fries you find at the bottom of the bag.
Role Models is a pretty decent comedy with all the expected inspiration and feel-goodness you could want in a Paul Rudd comedy. There’s even an early appearance from Keegan-Michael Key who sort of lingers in the background here and there, untapped at every moment. However, it’s Lynch and Lynch alone who steals the show, even delivering the wake-up call that turns it all around. Very cool. But mostly, she does what she does best, makes you laugh. And that’s no BS.