Film review: Meet the Millers

When Jennifer Aniston is in a movie I usually don’t hold too high hopes for it. Does anyone actually think she is a good actress? Does anyone actually think she is funny?

Because besides her 10-year stint as Rachel on Friends, I find her quite terrible in her rom coms.

Although, while I find her terrible, I still really like her. Don’t ask me how that works, that’s just the way it is. Soft spot, maybe? I want her to be in a good film where she is a component of why a film is good, and that her awfulness is just hidden by her funnier, better acting cast mates.

Meet the Millers was not that film. I did really enjoy the cast as a whole; Jason Sudeikis is a great, understated actor, Emma Roberts is one of my favourite up-and-coming young actresses (I can’t wait to see her in a really, really good role) and Will Poulter was absolutely hilarious.

Jennifer Aniston, in comparison, was not a stand out. Like many (most) of her films, anyone could have played her character, and probably could have played it a lot better, too.

The premise of this film is rather stupid. A small time drug dealer, David (Sudeikis), gets robbed and owes his drug lord boss (Ed Helm) a bucket load of money. Instead of “killing him”, the drug lord tells him to bring some drugs over from Mexico to pay his debt.

So David comes up with the perfect drug smuggling scam: a family road trip in n RV. He enlists his stripper neighbour Rose (Anniston) to play his wife and the mother to his two kids; Kenny (Poulter), his young, naive next door neighbour who apparently has no parents, and Casey (Roberts), a young girl with an attitude problem who lives on the street.

There were definitely some good jokes and I laughed out loud more than once, which is great. To get them out of a bind, Rose strips and it’s a full on five minutes of perving at Jennifer Aniston’s bodacious bod (she deserves all the drool she gets – she looks amazing), and there are a few sweet moments between David and Rose that show some good chemistry between Sudeikis and Anniston. The dude who plays Kenny was so funny and I really hope to see him in some more films soon.

There are a few negatives, though. Besides the storyline being ridiculous, with Rose accepting only $10,000 to smuggle drugs across the border, and Casey only accepting a grand (Kenny was doing it for free), it was all very predictable.

Lots of racist stereotypes against Mexicans, the baddies were all stupid, and it was all wrapped up far too nicely at the end,

But, I didn’t hate it. I wasn’t expecting much from this film at all so it was good to watch it and be pleasantly surprised. It’s in no way a smart comedy and it won’ be winning any prizes for anything any time soon, but if you take it for what it is, a silly comedy, it’s just that.

Score: 2.5/5