Tammy is having a really bad day. She's totalled her clunker car after hitting a deer (deer's hit back FYI), gotten fired from her thankless job at a greasy burger joint and, instead of finding comfort at home, finds her husband getting comfortable with the neighbour in her own house. It's time for her to leave town, something her mother calls her pattern, she always has a fit, leaves vowing to not return only to return the very next day. The one hold up in her plan this time? She's broke and without wheels. The worse news is her grandma, Pearl, is her only option-with a car, cash, and an itch to leave town and see Niagara Falls. Not exactly the escape Tammy had in mind. But on the road, with grandma riding shot gun, it may be just what Tammy needs.
Tammy stars Melissa McCarthy as the titular character whose life is in ruins after the events described above. Driving around with her diabetes ridden, alcoholic grandmother, played by Susan Sarandon, isn't helping her case very much despite the fact she's supplying the wheels and over $6,000 in cash. Along the journey Tammy and her grandma Pearl discover they may not be as different as they thought they were at the beginning of their journey as they find love, life and advice to make them better people. Typical comedy right???
Wrong. Tammy is not only unfunny... It borders on "Not even trying to be funny" territory. I can tell you while watching Tammy the amount of times I laughed can be counted on one hand., and not one of those times was the laughter consistent it was pretty much chuckles. That's what this movie should be classified as a road trip chuckler. Although this movie is unfunny it doesn't necessarily fail. Most people would expect a Melissa McCarthy movie to be funny or at least try to be so I can understand people being disappointed with the final product (2.5/10 score on Metacritic right now) but what it lacks in laughter it makes up with heart.
The beginning of the movie was very uneven... I'm not sure if husband and wife writing duo of McCarthy and Ben Falcone are new to the whole writing thing, for what it's worth neither of them have any prior screenwriting credits, but it is incredibly rocky, the shabby editing doesn't help with this problem either. It does eventually even out near the end but it's like that old adage "It's not the destination that's important, it's the adventure along the way" and the adventure to the end result was rough.
Melissa McCarthy continues to be a viable screen presence, even if the lovable fat loser shtick is getting stale quickly. The supporting cast is equally impressive as we tend to not see Sarandon is this kind of role but she buys in 100% and is engaging throughout. Love interest Marc Duplass plays Bobby, given the scripting issues he doesn't get given a whole lot but is able to stack up against McCarthy and Sarandon with ease. Kathy Bates and Sandra Oh have won enough awards to know they can act, but make them a lesbian couple and they are easily the best parts of Tammy, perhaps only because they are the moral centre point and appear only when the script starts to smooth out, but I doubt it. Its just great casting and even better acting. It's unfortunate they couldn't have, you know, actual writers and a director (Falcone again) who has been around the block before.
In the end Tammy is unfortunately billed as a comedy despite not being funny which of course will lead to disappointment, especially given McCarthy's stature as the funniest woman in the world. The cast is great but due to the inexperienced writing and directing the film suffers and shabby post production makes those points more visible than they may have been if it had better editing. The uneven nature of the movie will annoy the film aficionados out there, but may not be apparent to the casual movie goers but in the end the movie finds it's way, no matter how awkward it is, and stops trying to use desperate attempts at humour that fail and embraces it's human element. I give Tammy 3 Fast Food Robberies out of 5.
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