Role Models

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The fun of Role Models is that it's a high-concept movie executed with speed and finesse and the kind of brusquely tossed-off obscene banter that can get you laughing before you know what hit you.

Empire Ian Freer

A great example of the Emotionally Stunted Men Grow A Heart sub-genre. Role Models staves off the January blues and puts a marker down as 2009’s laugh-out-loud comedy to beat.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Any movie that shows its heroes firing up a joint between stints as high-school anti-drug crusaders is true to its black little heart.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Though its grosses may not soar into the realm occupied by "Superbad" and "American Pie," it has more sympathy for its characters.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

The surprisingly funny Role Models does three things extremely well. It gives killer roles to comic actors frequently stuck in ensembles. It directs hilariously harsh words at children and lets the children direct even harsher words back at the adults. And it's oddly determined to give a fair shake to fans of both medieval role-playing and the band Kiss.

TV Guide Cammila Albertson

It does consistently remain both totally nuts and totally hilarious.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

It's pretty formulaic stuff, and earns its R rating with profanity and unapologetically gratuitous female nudity, but somehow has a winning knuckleheaded charm.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

In its loose, ramshackle, gleefully profane first half, Role Models suggests "School Of Rock" with Tourette's, or the original "Bad News Bears" without the baseball.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The kind of comedy where funny people say funny things in funny situations, not the kind of comedy that whacks you with manic shocks to force an audible Pavlovian response.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Misfits and misanthropes are the heroes of Role Models, a surprisingly clever comedy.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Sometimes a shamelessly stoopid, proudly profane R-rated comedy is all you want out of life. Role Models more than fills the bill. It's killer funny.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Role Models isn't a classic like "Superbad" or as hilarious as this summer's "Step Brothers," but it's excellent fun for males in the mental age bracket of 14 to 22, which is most males.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

A funny and twisted movie from beginning to end, closing with an emotional payoff.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The casting is the key to the success of this absolutely hilarious crowd-pleaser.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The general tone is one of crusty, unapologetic misanthropy, driven home by the formidable Rudd (who also kicked in on the script).

The Hollywood Reporter John DeFore

Rudd and Scott hail from different universes of movie comedy, but manage together here just fine, particularly since each takes a different path.

Variety Dennis Harvey

Laden with more than enough profane humor to warrant its R rating, this is nonetheless a formulaic crowd-pleaser.

Village Voice Robert Wilonsky

Wain, Marino, and Rudd pull it off because theirs is a funnier, brainier, bawdier brand of feel-good.

Washington Post Neely Tucker

You can probably figure out how this is all going to end, but it still has more laughs than you might think. Nobody gets more than the wonderful Jane Lynch as the ex-drug addict and director of the mentoring program.

Slate Dana Stevens

Role Models may not set its sights very high, but it comes by its emotional payoff honestly. And why isn't Paul Rudd in greater demand as a romantic comedy lead?

Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt

Misanthropy in the movies has a new face. And, surprising to say, it's a handsome one. A matinee-idol face, in fact. Some might even go so far as to call it "dreamy." It's the face of Paul Rudd.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Role Models has a tart surface and a heart of goo. The movie grows more obvious as it goes along.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Role Models wouldn't be anything without Mintz-Plasse, whose character occasions what may be the cinema's first really funny Marvin Hamlisch joke, and whose camera presence is at once unfailingly modest and distinctive.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Isn't as uproarious as it pretends to be. The foul language, the constant repetition of words like the aforementioned "boobies" -- look, they've even got me doing it -- doesn't feel daring or cathartic, only canned.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

It's disposable entertainment at its most extreme.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

By the time the film reaches its big mushy climax, in which the slackers discover their inner caring during a dopey medieval role-playing battle, the movie starts to feel something like a pleasure again.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

In this brand of comedy, nothing succeeds like excess, and this film is seriously deficient.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

With the ferocity of a drill instructor and the boundless confidence of a self-help guru who combines psychobabble clichés with embarrassingly explicit confessions, Ms. Lynch's Gayle redeems the movie from utter banality.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Furiously raunchy, occasionally bright and eventually benumbing comedy.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Where on the evolutionary scale of wacky-dudes-learn-to-grow-up movies does Role Models fall? Certainly less evolved than "Meatballs," but head and hairy knuckles above "Daddy Day Care" or "The Benchwarmers."

Film Threat Matthew Sorrento

If "Models'" comedy is a bore, the characters' redemption is sheer agony – not to mention the shameless pop-cultural referencing that repeats like a bad taco.