Ricky Stanicky
The title "Buddy Unfunny" must've already been taken.
Film Yap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
I’m a big fan of the Farrelly brothers dating back to their 1990s heyday of “Dumb and Dumber,” “Kingpin” (still Bill Murray’s funniest performance IMHO) and “There’s Something About Mary.”
Brothers Peter and Bobby went their separate ways creatively after “Dumb and Dumber To” back in 2014. Peter struck Oscar gold with 2018’s “Green Book” and subsequently continued his serious streak with 2022’s “The Greatest Beer Run Ever” (my review here). Bobby returned to feature filmmaking last year with the underrated Woody Harrelson basketball dramedy “Champions” (my review here). Peter’s latest “Ricky Stanicky” (streaming on Amazon Prime Video beginning Thursday, March 7) is a return to the gross-out comedy roots upon which he and Bobby cut their teeth. Unfortunately, it’s to diminishing results.
Lifelong pals Dean (Zac Efron, looking more and more like David Hasselhoff by the day), JT (Andrew Santino) and Wes (Jermaine Fowler) created an imaginary friend named Ricky Stanicky as children to help them get out of trouble when a prank goes awry.
The trio has carried Stanicky into adulthood with them. If they want to blow off a personal or professional commitment they invoke Stanicky’s name and a sticky situation and they’re off. The latest instance of this happening occurs during a baby shower for JT and his wife Susan (Anja Savcic) when the dudes have a conflict with a concert in Atlantic City, N.J.
While in A.C. JT misses the birth of his son and now Susan, her mother Leona (Heather Mitchell), Dean’s TV reporter girlfriend Erin (Lex Scott Davis) and Wes’ boyfriend Keith (Daniel Monks) want answers. The fellas must make Stanicky materialize. They hire alcoholic failed actor “Rock Hard” Rod (John Cena) – whom they met while partying in A.C. – to embody their fictional friend.
Stanicky charms his way into a job with Dean and JT’s boss Summerhayes (William H. Macy) where he’s making more than they are despite being entirely unqualified. Erin also angles for a promotion away from puff pieces by doing a profile on Stanicky and his so-called philanthropic endeavors alongside Bono, which could derail her career as it’s complete hogwash. As the lies begin compounding and threatening their personal and professional lives these buddies must find a way to run Ricky/Rod out of town.
At almost two hours in length “Ricky Stanicky” is far too long and nowhere near funny enough. (It took a whopping eight writers to pen this poppycock, which is absolutely flabbergasting.) I didn’t care for our selfish protagonists and their straight man roles never allow them to shine, which sucks as Santino is genuinely hilarious when given the right material (see “Scrambled” as evidence).
Cena fares best of all the performers. “Rock Hard” Rod does a masturbation-themed rock n’ roll show where he dresses as the artists he’s covering – among them Alice Cooper, Peter Frampton, Billy Idol and Brittney Spears. This accounts for three of the picture’s five laughs. The other two come from Macy’s Summerhayes, who has a habit of “air dicking” (looking like he’s fellating penises), when driving a point home during speeches. This is the level of comedy we’re dealing with … and this is the funniest stuff.
Farrelly and his fellow creatives do deserve credit for making one of our leads gay and not making his queerness the butt of jokes. It’s also cool that they opted to show a pair of interracial relationships. This likely wouldn’t have happened as recently as 10, 15, 20 years ago. I dig that “Ricky Stanicky” is somewhat woke, but this doesn’t help sell a bunch of broke jokes.