Movie Review: We're the Millers

THERE are just enough laughs to be had from We're the Millers to allow this sketchy, smutty comedy the benefit of the doubt, writes Leigh Paatsch.

Jason Sudeikis and Jennifer Aniston attends the European premiere of 'We're The Millers'. Photo: Getty

There are just enough laughs to be had from We're the Millers to allow this sketchy, smutty comedy the benefit of the doubt.

There are never enough laughs to be had from We're the Millers to extinguish any doubts it may not be funny as it might have been. Nothing wrong with the setup, that's for sure. Jason Sudeikis plays Dave, a low-level pot dealer forced to participate in a high-stakes drugs deal to get rid of a crushing debt to his supplier. All Dave has to do is pilot a campervan full of weed from Mexico back to home base. If he can get the millions of dollars worth of marijuana past the fuzz on the border, there won't be a problem. So all Dave needs is some cover that will not arouse any suspicion whatsoever . He decides to pose as an everyday father in an everyday family of holiday-makers. Without a family of his own, Dave must cast a not-so-wide net to fill the roles of the ruse. The mother will be Rose (Jennifer Aniston), a stripper who lives in a neighbouring apartment. Dave's son will be Kenny (Will Poulter), a dopey kid who also lives down the hall. His sister will be played by Casey (Emma Roberts), a homeless kid who lives on the street outside. Once they hit the open road, the Millers - as they have christened themselves - prove to be a predictably dysfunctional bunch. Just as predictably, the fake family they have become will be vanquished by the real family they are becoming. All together now: aww, shucks. The movie fares much better when it backs away from the safe stuff, and gets as broad, basic and blue with its humour as it can. While definitely not leading-man material in any sense, Sudeikis has a comedic cunning that serves him and the movie well enough. This guy does know how to both level-up a gag that appears to be losing altitude, and then land the whole thing smoothly on the punchline. Aniston finds the going tougher, but that's arguably the fault of a role weakly defined by the screenwriters. Her big disrobing sequence is built up to be a show-stopper, but is a bit of a fizzer, really. Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber (Dodgeball) Starring: Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Emma Roberts, Will Poulter, Ed Helms, Nick Offerman Small crack-ups in a grass menagerie