David Wain's Role Models is a great set-up for a movie with a fantastic cast, but the talented comedian behind the great and underrated Wet Hot American Summer forgot the follow-through. The first half hour of Role Models is as laugh-out-loud funny as practically anything in this great year for comedy (it's been the most thriving genre of 2008 from Sarah Marshall through the R-rated trifecta of late summer to Zack and Miri and now this), but it will dawn on audiences about halfway through the film that the set-up is really the entire movie. I kept waiting for another act or another subplot, only to be disappointed that the screenplay is essentially just half-baked. Now, half-baked is more than a lot of lesser comedies deliver, and there are enough laughs in Role Models to recommend it if you’re desperate for a laugh, but the first half-hour hints at a great comedy to come and it's just okay instead. Like a lot of role models, it lets you down after you get past the first impression.

Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott are the surprisingly effective buddy team at the center of Role Models. Scott has a physical presence that's actually a great balance to Rudd's more cynical, intellectual brand of humor. They work perfectly together and a lot of the film's success can be attributed to their chemistry and comic timing. Rudd plays Danny Donahue, a pessimistic, generally negative s.o.b. who spends his days selling the energy drink "Minotaur" to high school students with his buddy Wheeler (Seann William Scott). When Danny realizes that he's been hocking liquid caffeine too long for any grown man, he kind of snaps and not only awkwardly asks his girlfriend Beth (the in-every-movie-and-always-lovely Elizabeth Banks) to marry him, but also gets into a scrape with a tow-truck guy and a cop that earns him and Wheeler 150 hours of community service. They spend those hours in a big brother program headed by Gayle Sweeney (the hysterical Jane Lynch), where Danny is paired with the dorky and awkward Augie Farks (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and Wheeler is lucky enough to meet the raunchiest pre-teen on the planet, Ronnie Shields (Bobb'e J. Thompson).

There are some lessons in Role Models about letting your freak flag fly and being supported at whatever you want to do and whoever you want to be, but the script is largely just a series of jokes and clever lines designed for Rudd's signature brand of humor. He's incredibly enjoyable in Role Models. In fact, the entire cast is good, even down to the cameos by Wain's regular collaborators like Ken Marino and Joe Lo Truglio. The problem is, once we realize that Augie is into live-action role-playing and that Ronnie isn't as tough as his vocabulary, there's nowhere to go. I kept wanting Role Models to surprise me and take a left turn or do something unexpected. It's easily the most "standard" of the films made by Wain. Role Models is actually a real simple movie to sum up - funny but predictable. With such a talented cast, I wanted more. Then again, most of my role models have let me down in real life too.

Rating: TWO AND A HALF BONES

Reviewed by Brian Tallerico (MovieRetriever.com Film Critic)

Release Date: November 7th, 2008

Rating: R

Starring: Paul Rudd, Seann William Scott, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb’e J. Thompson, Elizabeth Banks, and Jane Lynch

Director: Paul Rudd & David Wain & Ken Marino and Timothy Dowling

Writer: David Wain

Check out the MovieRetriever.com

ROLE MODELS Page!