Tammy

I've been a huge supporter of comedic actress Melissa McCarthy so far, but this may be the break. I'll probably give her more chances, but this one's a bit of a flop. It's mostly due to the script, but it was written by McCarthy and her husband Ben Falcone (who also directed). They really needed some help with their script. Frankly, the movie is largely plot less, never getting its story off the ground, and, worst of all, it's laughless. Identity Thief had a pretty awful script, too, but at least it brought the funny. The biggest problem here is that the story, as they have written it, should have been a dramedy. Instead, McCarthy and Falcone are not brave enough to embrace the dramatic aspects of the script. They're dead-set on making a stupid, slapstick, R-rated comedy, and they aren't going to let the audience feel any genuine emotion. Tammy begins with the protagonist (McCarthy) getting fired from her crappy, fast-food job only to go home and find her husband cheating on her. She walks a few houses down to her mom's house, swearing she's going to just leave. Her alcoholic grandmother (Susan Sarandon) is sick of it at her daughter's house, too, so she decides to bankroll the operation. This movie would suck a whole lot more without Sarandon. She's actually quite excellent, and has some complexities (she's a major alcoholic, for one). What this movie needed to be about was the two of these people bonding. It has a certain charm when the two women are interacting. The problem is, neither of them is given enough background to characterize them. Every time they seem to be getting somewhere with either of the characters, like I said before, it feels like they get too afraid the audience might start to feel an emotion so they have Melissa McCarthy crash her jetski or something. And, again, like I said before, some of this crappiness in the script could have been alleviated if the film were just ever funny. There's one sequence, where McCarthy has to rob a fast food restaurant, which provides some laughs, but the entire sequence was played in the trailer. Since it was the only really funny sequence, I can't blame them. McCarthy's brazenness was funny in her last two movies, but she kind of cranks the obnoxiousness up to eleven, particularly near the beginning. Oh, and then there's the love interest, Mark Duplass. Man, are they ever unsure that they should allow him to have a romantic relationship with the overweight protagonist. Duplass himself always has a look on his face which says, "This is to fund my next mumblecore project," and the character only seems to exist to stand there and tell McCarthy that she's okay. He's very much equivalent to the personality-less, female love interests in every other movie that's been released this summer, except they seem to not be able to bring themselves to let the two form a romantic relationship on screen.

Melissa McCarthy has risen to the forefront of female cinema comics, and I want to believe she deserves her place. Is she a better comedienne than Tina Fey, Amy Pohler, or Jenny Slate? No. She has secured her place ever since Bridesmaids as a potty-mouthed plus size who throws her weight and mouth around the screen like a weapon threatening anyone who thinks she is not comical.

She's not always so, at least in Tammy, in which she plays an underachieving rebel losing her fast food job and taking to the road with her grandmother, Pearl (Susan Sarandon), to escape that job loss and the loss of her husband, Greg (Nat Faxon), to neighbor Missi (Toni Collette).

Thelma and Louise this Tammy is not: Besides the regularity of curse words (McCarthy is one of the writers) that substitute for wit, the insults to seniors and fast-food workers are gratuitous. Tammy's 38 days in jail are treated like a light diversion, not the result of a serious fast-food robbery. I must remember, however, not to apply standards of common sense to comedy.

So it seems the writers have a difficult time deciding what tone-- between the comedy about a rotund lady on the lam and the serious issue of alcoholism. It seems they wanted both hilarity and poignancy—mostly they have neither.

One need look only at much better writing in other contemporary buddy films like the Jump Streets, where Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill have lines that bite and soothe and a chemistry that Sarandon and McCarthy strive for but don't always achieve. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid's chemistry and wit are superior, so too Sarandon and Davis in Thelma and Louise, and by the way, McCarthy and Bullock in Heat.

However, McCarthy suffers by comparison with heavyweights like Latifa, Kathy Bates, and maybe Roseanne Barr, who is a more direct comparison and at times better able to show range.

Susan Sarandon's portrayal of the alcoholic grandma is rarely humorous or poignant. Her flirting with a guy of a certain age is a good bit for her youthful old age, but the connection is forced under the umbrella of cute for an oldster.

Tammy is not a keeper in the buddy genre; perhaps McCarthy will engage Bullock again for a better brand of banter.

After Tammy had a bad day combo of getting fired and caught her husband cheating, she goes to take a runaway trip. But since she lacks money and a car, she urges to borrow them from her grandma Pearl, who then insisted that she joins Tammy. The pair gets crazy on their trip, purchasing a broken jet ski in process, while from time to time Pearl reminisce about her past stories and tell them to Tammy. The catch of the trip for Tammy is that Pearl is secretly a heavy alcoholic, and lustful, despite her obvious danger from diabetes. One night at a bar the pair meet father and son Earl and Bobby. Pearl and Earl hooks right up, leaving Tammy alone outside for the night. The next morning Tammy gets infuriated and leaves Pearl while she gets drunk. When Tammy returns to her, they get arrested due to disturbing public peace. Pearl bails Tammy out.

That night, feeling guilty, Tammy resorts to robbing a branch of Topper Jack, a fast food brand where she was employed. It turns out that Pearl had contacted Earl to bail her out. So the next day Pearl and Tammy returns the robbed money. Pearl then contacts her friends Lenore and Susanne. Lenore then ditches the car Tammy and pearl uses to cover tracks of the robbery, but they bring the jet ski. Eventually they give a "Viking funeral" to the jet ski at a night party at Lenore's. The next day the police come due to the neighbors complaining about a burning jet ski. That's when they made it about Tammy. Afetr some time Tammy gets out of jail. When she gets home, her mother tells her that they put Pearl in a retirement home. Angered, Tammy rushes to the home trying to free Pearl. To Tammy's surprise Pearl is happy where she is. But they still go to Niagara Falls, the original destination of their trip.

The story is actually based on a quite uncommon premise of having a runaway trip after going through a low point in life. The movie doesn't really develop the entire story suitably. It feels like there are some things missing here and there. The pace is not well set, where, starting from the deer crash, we have the first twenty to thirty minutes in a rather fast pace. Yet it slows down, starting about the conversation in front of the eagle, and stays that way for a long duration. And after that, the pace doesn't really recover. It makes the mood of the movie feels rather awkward.

The jokes feels rather off because there are many great laughs from the dialog, but there is little to none of rather physical or practical joke. Well, compared to the last time I saw Melissa McCarthy in The Heat (2013), Tammy (2014) has way less of those crazy practical jokes. I bring this up because I do think there are many spots which are capable to be filled with some practical laughs here and there.

The acting is a so-so job in overall. McCarthy still did her loud, raunchy and wild character as she almost always do. Susan Sarandon provides some extra laughs, especially on the scenes of Pearl and Earl. Kathy Bates gives an adequate supporting cast acting as well as Gary Cole and Mark Duplass.

My final say that Tammy is only worth a 5 out of 10 score. Although it is a good laugh most of the time, and it can be a good entertainment, but it definitely can't be included in the family movie category due to the harsh language. Also the unstable pave building makes this movie loses it.

Comedian Aisha Tyler once stated that comedians should take the first punch during their stand-up/hosting/entertaining performances. Making fun of oneself is more amicable and less controversial than reviling any group of people right off the bat. In my life today, someone cited Melissa McCarthy as a comedian. I originally concurred with the classification, but the more thought I infused into that labeling, the more I dissent it. McCarthy is not Tina Fey, Ellen Degeneres, or Amy Poehler; she began as an actress and continues her career as one. The "comedian" excuse does not apply.

In "Tammy", McCarthy does not only censure herself for the initial stages of the film, but tries to fly the entire film on string of self embarrassment. The saddest thought from my viewing of this film: McCarthy is not only selecting roles like Tammy, but she's creating them for herself. (McCarthy co-wrote the film's screenplay and is directly responsible for the material she has to act out.)

McCarthy and Academy Award winner Susan Sarandon are faced with the most screen time in "Tammy" and each contribute more as actors than the script does as a narrative. McCarthy's hysterically brazen screen presence is the film's true source of humor, but I can't help but wonder if McCarthy would be open to revisiting authentic characters like she used to portray in "Gilmore Girls", which would replace her gimmicky, stereotypical roles like Tammy. Susan Sarandon, a goddess of her generation, keeps putting herself out there in whatever script she can get her hands on and we still pity her. As Tammy's grandmother, she at least straps on her acting gear and succeeds with a few lovely moments, but frankly her talent is not justified nor is it utilized properly.

For a project of such a low caliber, "Tammy" attracted a surplus of remarkably talented actors for brief, unflattering roles. The roster includes Gary Cole, Dan Aykroyd, Toni Collette, Sandra Oh, Kathy Bates and Allison Janney (who took time out of her career best year on television shows "Girls" and "Masters of Sex" to make time for an extended cameo in "Tammy"). Maybe McCarthy charmed these award winners with friendship to convince them "Tammy" was a worthwhile project. At any rate, it looks like they all had fun.

At best, "Tammy" is a cute flick to see with silly friends looking to laugh at things that probably would not be as funny if everyone accessorized their theater-going wardrobe with their thinking caps. McCarthy owns her figure and the expected judgment, but what makes "Tammy" funny is the facial expressions and enunciation McCarthy uses when reciting witless lines of dialogue. Especially in the film's first act, "Tammy" did acquire some laughter on my behalf. (Now whether I was laughing with it or at it is another story...)

At worst, the film is nothing more than an hour and a half of McCarthy making an a$s out of herself. Unclear and unrealistic characterization, expedient character growth for the leading goon, erratic moments of failed poignancy, and poor writing that almost feels like comedic improvising are some of the many wretched qualities present in the film. McCarthy and her husband Ben Falcone, the co-writer and director of "Tammy" shoot blank after blank from their comedic firearm.

* / * * * *

"You're at a crossroads. You could change your life." Tammy (McCarthy) has just lost her job and comes home to find her husband with another woman. She packs her things and decides to leave. Her grandmother (Sarandon) offers her money and her car if she takes her with her. The two set out on a road trip that doesn't always go smooth. This is a movie that I thought could go either way. The previews looked funny and I really like McCarthy but I was worried that the funniest parts were in the trailer. There were a lot of the best jokes in the trailer but there was still enough new stuff to make it funny. The movie also has a lot of heart and you end up feeling sorry for Tammy a lot throughout. As funny as McCarthy is Susan Sarandon almost steals the movie from her. I do think this was very funny and Melissa McCarthy was strong as always but I really think she is gonna have to diversify her roles or she will become too repetitive and lose a lot of her humor. Overall, funny and worth seeing. McCarthy is as funny as ever. I give this a B+.