This farcical comedy has been permeated with foul-mouthed humor, not that some of its debased humor doesn’t work. Snatched is a starring vehicle for Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn, basically exploiting on Schumer’s trademark bad trainwreck girl while also exploiting on the Hawn’s cheesy farces that she was known for in the 1980’s. I was won over by Schumer’s “Trainwreck” and I’ve gone belly-up from her stand-up. With Hawn, when you say “Private Benjamin” or “Protocol” or “Seems Like Old Times” – well, I’ve seen all of those, truly I have, yet I’d be remiss if I didn’t confess to you that I’ve gotten all those movies mixed up and can barely tell them apart. In all honesty, “Overboard” is the one Goldie Hawn movie, cheesy farce as it was, from the ’80’s that I like a lot – it’s a saltier version of a Preston Sturges classic.
Anyway, classic is not the right word to choose while writing about “Snatched.” I found the first scene very funny, where Schumer is playing the clothes horse shopper from hell, only to turn the tables on its audience on a reveal, with well… it’s a moment worth checking out. Schumer goes on and on the next several scenes seemingly obsessed with making jokes about the female anatomy and horniness. Not to mention, the character is something desperate, where every “exciting” moment of her life has to be posted on her Instagram.
Anyway, Schumer has non-refundable tickets for Ecuador, but after her boyfriend dumps her, she wants her mom to go with her, and Hawn plays the mom as a panicky worrywart. They inevitably trust the wrong guys once in Ecuador, they get kidnapped, yet somehow escape (and during their escape they keep insulting their kidnapper non-deliberately in ways that riles him to want to catch these women even more). Mother and daughter have to find an embassy, or a very safe hotel to retreat to, yet in a movie like this that’s not so simple. It’s during this mid-section of the movie, especially the scenes with an amateur adventurer played by Christopher Meloni who comes to their rescue, that I thought the movie had a lot of funny jokes. It’s very Goldie Hawn-ish, too, this whole plot. But the one movie Hawn didn’t star in the ’80’s was “Romancing the Stone” with Kathleen Turner in the lead. Well, “Snatched” – which in my mind I keep forgetting the title and want to call it “Stranded” or “Strapped” – is kind of a warmed over “Romancing the Stone.”
It was like the producers, the director, the stars knew that they had a lot of slapstick jungle business, irresistible fish out of water gimmicks, loser humor, that they could play with and that it was worth making the movie because they had a string of funny ideas. Or perhaps a number of funny ideas, and they just needed an additional writer to figure out how to “string” them together. But the movie has no third act that no one could say is inspired, really, it’s just patched together. Although I should mentioned I laughed really hard once where Schumer’s friends are infiltrating a compound and get whisked away carelessly. There’s some brief semi-bloody action moments, some smartass heroic dialogue, some tough-love mother-daughter bonding, and then it’s over.
There are worse ways to kill time. I was embarrassed part of the time. I was annoyed by its preoccupied nature with shock humor. Yet I did laugh sporadically.
90 Minutes. Rated R.
FARCICAL COMEDY / CRUDE HUMOR / WEEKEND DEBAUCHERY
Film Cousins: “Private Benjamin” (1980); “Romancing the Stone” (1984); “Bird on a Wire” (1990); “Trainwreck” (2015).
