Review – We’re The Millers

A Family Vacation With A Smidge of Raunch…Among Other Things

David (Jason Sudeikis) is drug dealer. Sure he did pot in college and he hasn’t grown up much since then. He’s still selling pot and still every bit the slacker. When he tries to stick up for a friend in the middle of a fight he gets robbed of all his pot and all the cash he has in his safe. Now he tries everything to avoid the drug supplier, Brad (Ed Helms)but ends up cutting a deal.

Brad has a “smidge” of pot to pick up in Mexico and if David does the job for him, he’ll remove the debt AND pay him. So David hatches a plan, get the perfect Middle America family in an RV and bring the drugs back across. One problem, he has no family to do this with.

So he sets out to recruit a wife, stripper Rose (Jennifer Aniston), daughter homeless runaway Casey (Emma Roberts) and son, virgin Kenny (Will Poulter).After coaxing all of them to different extents they set off in an RV as the All-American Miller family to pick up the drugs for Pablo Chacon.

But the trip has a few turns in the road, and ends up with the Miller’s meeting another RV family (Nick Offerman and Kathryn Hahn) and the journey back to Brad is not nearly as easy as one would think. But that…is where the funny happens.

Sudeikis, Aniston, Roberts and Poulter are funny in this film. Though it wants to be the next Bridesmaids, it felt like there was a disinterest in committing to go “all the way” at times. One moment the film showed off raunchiness on par with the best “R” rated comedies, and the next it felt like a toned down and sanitized PG-13 journey. It was that lack of consistency and willingness to commit the rating that kept it from becoming one of those films that go down with the best raunchy comedies of our day.

But that doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate the effort. When the film goes for the jugular with laughs it works. And when it uses its clever mismatched family properly it really takes off. There’s a scene where Will Poulter learns how to kiss that will leave the strongest man jealous.

Although the film has good smaller roles for Ed Helms, Nick Offerman and Kathryn Hahn, among others, it seems to underutilize all the talent in here, especially when it diverted to an Emma Roberts love interest.

A fun and funny road trip film, We’re The Millers will leave you wanting more from this “family”.  And oh by the way, watch those credits…one of the cooler onset pranks is on film and Jennifer Aniston is the victim.

This family vacation is not what it seems, both the family and the vacation.

B

We’re The Millers

Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber

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

Rating: R for crude sexual content, pervasive language, drug material and brief graphic nudity.

Runtime: 1 hour 50 minutes