Tammy

I'm very surprised at all the negative reviews this film has received as I believe those who rated it negatively aren't accepting the movie for what it is. It is your typical Melissa McCarthy movie and for me that is a good thing. Her character in this film is almost identical to her character from "Identity Thief" but I don't have a problem with it like others do as I feel that is her comedic strong point. She isn't afraid to go that extra mile for a laugh. If you're on the fence on whether to rent or buy this movie just ask yourself if you liked her in Bradesmaids and Identity Thief and if your answer is yes, you will not be disappointed with her performance here.

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.

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.

* / * * * *

Melissa McCarthy has been making a pretty steady stream of films almost identical to this one, but where "Bridesmaids", "The Heat," and even "Identity Thief" succeeded, "Tammy" fell very short. "Tammy" is a movie about a middle-aged woman whose obnoxious personality has finally caught up to her. In the first five minutes of the film she has totaled her car, gotten fired from her job, and discovered her husband is having an affair. Her solution to this is to hit the road with her alcoholic grandmother and what follows is a cringe-worthy look at what happens when fictional crass and drunk people do whatever they want. A great idea right?

Wrong. I've always liked road-trip movies. I've always like road-trips. They bring out people's true characters, and what they're actually like when they've been alone in a car for a couple of hours. Yes, this can be pretty unpleasant when we're in the midst of it, but when we're allowed to sit back and watch, humanity becomes admirable when we can see what people are actually like with no boundaries, because the result is often good. If my opinion is asked for, that should be the goal of most films: to take a look at who we are.

So yes, I was looking forward to watching "Tammy" solely because of the fact that it's a road-trip movie. Unfortunately, this is not a road-trip movie. There are maybe three scenes in the entire film that take place in a car, and I'm pretty sure the only time we actually saw anyone driving on a highway was at the very start as Tammy was driving to work. It can be pretty hard to make a cross-country trip if you only drive through neighborhood streets, unless I'm reading the map upside- down.

"Tammy" had an outstanding cast, and it was largely wasted. Starring is of course Melissa McCarthy, playing the exact same character she always plays. That character has been very funny in the past, specifically large-screen debuting in "Bridesmaids", but here it just felt rehearsed. For what McCarthy called her passion project, I felt like she almost didn't even want to be there. Susan Sarandon co-stars as the grandmother, whose character must have been a grandmother at age thirty by the looks of it. In the outstanding (on paper) supporting cast we find Allison Janney, Kathy Bates, Sandra Oh, Mark Duplass, Nat Faxon, Sarah Baker, Toni Collette, and Dan Aykroyd. Bates and Baker specifically were very good, but were given way too little time on screen, and I was legitimately surprised Aykroyd and Colette even agreed to do this movie considering what they were given.

Director, supporting actor, co-writer, and husband to star Melissa McCarthy, Ben Falcone, attempted something different with his directorial debut, and that's where "Tammy" hurt more than anywhere else. What was advertised was an R-rated comedy, where you sit down to laugh at stupid people doing stupid things, and Falcone embraced that. Where he faulted was also trying to make this movie heartfelt with a good message behind it. What resulted was a 96 minute film where I didn't care for the characters or laugh a single time. I applaud Falcone for experimenting, but he should have realized that it didn't work and take advantage of the reshoot that they took to make some much needed changes.

I was very put off by "Tammy". I'm not a very big fan of the R- rated comedy genre in the first place, but I still laugh as the filmmakers blatantly attempt to elicit that reaction. Unfortunately, "Tammy" was not funny, and that can be a problem when that's the only reason somebody will go see this movie. So as I walked out of the theater I finally laughed as some bloopers began to play and my friend aptly stated: "Let's go. No need to watch the mistakes of the mistake."

I give "Tammy" a 5.2/10.

Another reviewer did write that as his summary and I would agree with that. You don't have to love Melissa (not only main role, but also script writing duties apparently as IMDb states), but if you hate her, this movie is not for you. It's a character that has a basic concept she has played in other movies too. So you'll know if you like that or not. But you get an added Susan Sarandon to that (amongst other really good actors).

Putting this group together was genius and everyone is pulling their weight. You still have to be able to like the humor/jokes they are spitting, otherwise you'll be left empty. The movie is predictable even if at first it seems not to have a goal it wants to reach. It still has quite some passages that could be better and not everything is completely convincing. But the movie itself is a nice watch overall