“Role Models” is a profane comedy that makes a fatal error in imposing adult humor on a milieu of underage co-stars.
Fun-loving Wheeler (Seann William Scott) and cynical Danny (Paul Rudd) are two twentysomething slackers whose on-the-job shenanigans as middle-school-visiting energy drink promoters leave them with a choice of spending 30 days in jail or doing 150 hours of Big Brother-styled community service.
Guess which one they pick.
Jane Lynch lands some comic zingers as Gayle Sweeney, the head of a child mentoring program where Wheeler and Danny are forced to make adjustments on their own immaturity by mentoring a couple of pre-teen boys with behavioral problems of their own.
The film’s by-committee script is to blame for a cringe-worthy movie that could have worked much better had the younger characters been just a few years older.
(Universal) Rated R. 99 mins.
