Snatched

Snatched

Starring Amy Schumer, Goldie Hawn, Wanda Sykes, Joan Cusack

Directed by Jonathan Levine

The Story:
Emily Middleton (Amy Schumer) is not having a good day.  She got fired from her job, and her boyfriend breaks up with her, and to top it off, she's stuck going on a trip to Ecuador by herself, since said boyfriend dumped her.  Not having any real friends, she enlists her overly protective mother Linda (Goldie Hawn) to reluctantly accompany her.

After arriving in Ecuador, she meets a handsome Brit who takes the pair on a scenic drive, only to get kidnapped and held for ransom.  The two polar opposites have to learn to work together and face their fears if they'll make it back home in one piece.

The Synopsis:
The film begins with a title card that you'd see from most found-footage horror films, talking about two women who travel to Ecuador and end up kidnapped, and then says this is the story of the brutal acts of violence that followed - and then finishes with the words "and the kidnappers did bad things too."  Unfortunately, that was the only funny moment of this film, as the rest was a doleful sludge through better comedies past, with two somewhat capable leads (one who just came out of retirement, the other who's so one-act it might as well be a five minute monologue on repeat) and a razor thin script that seemingly should've brought laughs, but instead just delivered crickets.

Amy Schumer steps into her Amy Schumer-ness role as the overbearing, annoying, drunk, self-centered, egotistical (yet also very self-conscious), wannabe happy character that she's used to playing, and after only a few years of being on the scene, it's already getting old.  She tries to redeem herself in the film, but it just doesn't flow right, and there's only so many times you can say the P word before it's not funny - in this case, it's the first time.

Goldie Hawn hasn't been in a movie since "The Banger Sisters" in 2002, and it looks like she came out of retirement a bit too early - they need to put her back in, she's not ready yet.  Gone is her sense of comedy and timing, and now she's about as haggard as her character looks, with an expression that seems to repeatedly say, "why did you pull me out of retirement for this?"  Trust me, we're asking the same question.

The only other chuckles I got in the film (after the opening title) was the wonderful pairing of Wanda Sykes and Joan Cusack as a life couple on vacation in Ecuador.  Wanda's character warns about being kidnapped, and Cusack's character is a former military woman who cut out her own tongue so she'd never give away information if interrogated.  They play off each other well and Sykes is a natural talent - unlike Schumer.

With a film that relies solely on their two leads, they needed to find a better cast to hold it up.  Schumer and Hawn have as much chemistry as oil and vinegar, and the majority of their jokes fall on deaf ears.  The story is so painfully simple and predictable that maybe no one could've saved it, but they could've given it a try.  Much like the maligned "Baywatch," "Snatched" went for the R-rating in hopes of drawing in a bigger crowd, but providing justenough (I know there's no space there, I'm merely typing it like that to prove a point) R-rated material to garner the rating, but never going the full length it could've to possibly bring in at least some raunchy humor - I guess raunchy humor is better than no humor at all, which is what this film delivered.

The Summary:
"Snatched" was a movie about a mother and daughter getting kidnapped in Ecuador.  In reality, it's the viewer who's gotten their 90 minutes of their lives kidnapped, but that is something that can never be ransomed back.

The Score: D+