Seth MacFarlane hits some bum notes with A Million Ways to Die in the West
A: NOT really. A Million Ways to Die in the West has a gastrically panicked Neil Patrick Harris, some offensive jokes and an ungainly lead. And that’s just the start.
Leigh Paatsch
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AFTER creating a monster hit from behind the scenes with 2012’s Ted, one-man comedy machine Seth MacFarlane steps before the cameras for his feature acting debut.
It comes as no real surprise that the prolific creator of TV’s Family Guy (and one-off Oscars host) doesn’t really have the performing smarts to anchor a movie of nearly two hours.
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Nevertheless, there are just enough clever, cracking laughs in this tale of a whiny, self-obsessed sheep farmer in the wild west to earn A Million Ways to Die in the West a pass mark.
If you can venture beyond MacFarlane’s ungainly screen presence — alternately nervy, needy and naughty — you will find enough genuinely funny material to save the whole shebang from becoming a vacuous vanity project.
Exhibit A for the defence: the spectacularly surreal sight of a sunflower growing from a place where the sun doesn’t shine on Liam Neeson.
There’s plenty more of that kind of proudly lowbrow, highly amusing stuff.
There are killer blink-or-miss celeb cameos threaded right throughout the picture.
Invariably the best jokes come along just at the point you’re feeling you’ve almost had enough solo Seth MacFarlane to last a lifetime.
He plays Albert Stark, an 1880 malcontent with a 2014 turn of phrase who hates everything that frontier life stands for.
Albert’s misery as a man on the land is usually expressed by a running series of extended monologues that sound like expired stand-up routines.
The film could have done with less of this pedestrian patter — needlessly peppered with expletives — and more of the comic’s winning way with a sight gag. There are standouts aplenty on that front.
But if I had to stump up an Exhibit B, I’d go with the scene where a crowd of old-timer yokels see a $1 bill for the first time in the their lives.
Are there any other major pluses of note?
Well, the open cheque-book at MacFarlane’s post-Ted disposal netted him quite an impressive support cast.
To her credit, Charlize Theron could have coasted through the job of MacFarlane’s love interest, but she does not. This is the most alive and in-the-moment she’s been in a movie in years.
Neeson is the bad dude, and wears a black hat with the right dash of menace. Sarah Silverman plays a sex worker with strict Christian values and Giovanni Ribisi is her unquestioning virgin boyfriend.
Any major minuses aside from the star of the show?
Well, I’m not sure the world needed two whole minutes of a gastrically panicked Neil Patrick Harris defecating in hats.
More worryingly, there are some offensive japes at the expense of women and ethnic minorities that should never have made the final cut.
A Million Ways to Die in the West (MA15+)
Director: Seth MacFarlane (Ted)
Starring: Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, Giovanni Ribisi
Verdict: Two-and-a-half stars. Just enough signs of life (and laughs)
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