5 ideas about a movie: Snatched

Hi!

2015’s Trainwreck was both a commercial and critical hit. Let’s see if Amy Schumer can repeat the same level of success in 2017 with Snatched (most likely not). Female comedies generally can do very good if they are good, like Bad Moms. However, Snatched seems to be closer to Tammy (even the premises are similar).

IMDb summary: When her boyfriend dumps her before their exotic vacation, a young woman persuades her ultra-cautious mother to travel with her to paradise, with unexpected results.

Snatched was written by Katie Dippold (The Heat, Spy, Ghostbusters). Schumer herself is said to have done some additional writing, though, she has not received a screenwriting credit. The movie was directed by Jonathan Levine (producer of the last year’s Mike and Dave comedy). Well-known comedy director Paul Feig served as a producer. Overall, I was pretty disappointed by the movie, even though I did not expect much.
To begin with, I thought that the movie did not know what it wanted to be. The tone was all over the place. Snatched tried being a comedy for the modern ‘selfie’ generation (social media played a part and Internet-y types of jokes were used) but also employed old-school Hollywood comedy cliches, like the ‘nerd character’, ‘idiot in the lead’ (literally just saw one of those in Baywatch too), and ‘sibling rivalry’.
Storywise, a lot of weird choices were made. A lot of supporting characters were introduced but their plot-lines went nowhere. The two ladies (ex-special ops agent and her friend) had a small role to play so I could forgive their involvement, even though it was jarring at first. The doctor, his friend, and the worm – what was that scene all about? It was also super abruptly cut. The American adventurer was literally on screen for 5 minutes (best ones of the film). However, I didn’t like the fact that they trusted him instantly just because he was an American (I wouldn’t). That action just felt super irresponsible and just plain stupid. What Snatched didn’t seem to get was that stupidity does not equal humor.
Overall, all the jokes were mostly awkward going on cringe-y rather than being funny. The narrative was lazy cause the characters would escape a situation by a coincidence. The set-up was quick (15 minutes) but I wish I cared more about it. The situational comedy fell flat most of the time too. The few emotional moments that the filmmakers attempted to include as well as a single scene of gender commentary were super out of place. At least the dance and the dog whistle things were paid off instead of being introduced and disappearing from the plot like so many other ideas. Basically, this movie was Grown Ups 3 – some actors just wanted their vacation in Hawaii (which acted as South America) to be captured by a professional film crew.
Amy Schumer played the daughter, while Goldie Hawn was dragged out of retirement to play her mother (she hasn’t appeared on film in 15 years). I thought that they were cast well as mother-daughter duo and their chemistry was fine too. However, I do wish that the characters were more interesting (the daughter could have been made less stupid especially). Ike Barinholtz (Neighbors, Suicide Squad) starred as the brother and he was actually quite fun to watch when paired with Bashir Salahuddin. The Shallows’ Óscar Jaenada played the main villain (a walking stereotype).