There is something so satisfying about a dumbass comedy, made by
dumbasses about dumbasses for dumbasses. I used to live for this
shit, way back when (not that long ago). And if you’re going to watch a
dumbass comedy, you could do worse than one from the remnants of The
State (David Wain, Kerri Kenney, Joe Lo Truglio) and their
attendant pals (Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks)—a comedy crowd that’s
always been a few rungs higher on the smart/funny/weird ladder than,
say, Road Trip or Dude, Where’s My Car? or, I don’t know,
Spring Break Boob Poop Party Train Poop Train 2: It’s Boobies
Time! (coming soon).
Role Models is a dumbass comedy. Rudd (doing his best
down-and-out John Cusack) is Danny, a spokesman for Minotaur Energy
Drink, a job that involves driving around in a truck shaped like a
Minotaur with a KISS-obsessed dumbass in a Minotaur costume (“No one
loves KISS. Paul Stanley is sick of KISS”). Danny hates being a
spokesman for Minotaur Energy Drink. He is in a rut. To get out of his
rut, he proposes to his girlfriend (Banks), who responds by telling him
that he’s a dick and “I’m not interested in becoming Mrs.
Dick-in-a-Rut.”
Then circumstances occur (wacky wacky wacky!), and Danny and the
KISS-obsessed dumbass (Seann William Scott) have to become Role Models
to two troubled children. One is a black child who swears a lot and is
irascible! The other is a nerd who dresses up like a warrior named
Bluffkin, goes to the park, and hits other nerds with a fake sword.
A lot (honestly, most) of it is dumb. The whole thing doesn’t quite
connect—it lacks confidence, maybe a sign of a first-time
screenwriter. (It’s Rudd’s screenwriting debut.) But Role Models contains some fucking brilliant comic performances, from Lo Truglio (as
a blustery medieval warrior who never breaks character) to Christopher
Guest favorite Jane Lynch, who is a goddamn genius in everything she
does. And Rudd makes some funny, sly observations about language and
literality and the amount of nonsense people spew every hour of every
day. When the irascible child throws popcorn in Danny’s face, A. D.
Miles (have you seen his standup? You should) shouts, “I’ve heard of
popcorn in the face, but this is ridiculous!” When the KISS-obsessed
dumbass passes out naked on the ground, Miles says, “Classic case of
Guy on the Ground.” I laughed. But then again, I am a dumbass. 
all people are dumbasses, this should be a movie everyone will love… speaking of, I need to go see it.
When I read Lindy West it reminds me of the scene in Fight Club between Norton and Pitt:
“Oh, I get it. That’s very clever. How’s that working out for you?”
“What?”
“Being clever.”
I really don’t enjoy her writing and she strikes me as quite the charlatan.
Jack, it actually goes like this:
“Oh, I get it. It’s very clever.”
“Thank you.”
“How’s that working out for you?”
“What?”
“Being clever.”
“Great.”
“Keep it up then.”
Idiot.
David Wain is hilarious. I don’t really know if I would call his brand of comedy “dumbass” though. There were a lot of funny lines/scenes in this movie in the vein of “wet hot american summer” and the “stella” shorts, both of which I found to be sort of brilliant despite the fact they were ridiculous. The “guy on the ground” line had me laughing for a while as well.