The Watch [DVD]

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As the advances in CGI special effects have continued to keep action-movie audiences roaring for bigger and better displays of digital bombast, a trend in Hollywood comedies has upped the ante in a parallel way. Raunchy, risqué, and just plain filthy humour is standard fare for audiences who like their vulgar laughs as much as their superheroic explosions. The two worlds collide in The Watch, a dirty shoot-'em-up whose comic core counters the extreme sci-fi story of an alien race that can't take a joke. Fortunately, the decidedly non-superhuman heroes battle it out with equal parts punches and punch lines. The first-rate cast is headed by Ben Stiller, who has plenty of experience with filthy humour and big-budget action. He also has the movie-star charisma to bring high concept down to the toilet or the gutter, whichever happens to be funnier. Stiller plays Evan, the upstanding, uptight manager of an Ohio Costco who starts to really care about crime after one of his security guards is brutally murdered. The can't really be bothered (Will Forte is excellent as a pompous local lawman), so Evan starts a neighbourhood watch as a way to take back the night. Unfortunately his recruits turn out to be a less than vigilant vigilante group, with Vince Vaughn as a brawny motor mouth obsessed with protecting his teen daughter, Jonah Hill as an off-kilter arms expert who was rejected by the academy (for good reason), and the indeterminately ethnic Richard Ayoade (excellent, as he was in The IT Crowd), who's focused only on the kind of action that involves sex and females. The quartet's individual issues are played at maximum laugh-per-minute volume and remain part of the story even after the team realises their crime problem isn't from the inner city, it's from outer space. Turns out a hive of aliens have commandeered Evan's Costco as a base of operations to dominate humanity. After all, what better place to stage an Earth takeover than a place that has everything? (Costco should get a big-box good sport award for signing off on such wall-to-wall product placement.) The script by Jared Stern, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg (the latter two's brilliant writing career also includes Superbad and Pineapple Express) is chock-a-block with jokes. The Watch tries so hard for nonstop laughs that it can't help but yield a high rate of success, especially when the material is worked by such an estimable ensemble of comedy pros. It's clear that director Akiva Schaffer fostered a strong improv vibe on the set (his background is directing shorts on Saturday Night Live). He's best at capturing a spontaneous sketch-comedy tone that drives the constant one-upsmanship between the filthy, shocking shenanigans of the four leads. They get ample help from the supporting cast. In addition to Will Forte as the disinterested cop, Rosemary DeWitt is terrific as Evan's demanding wife. And in an extended, uncredited cameo Billy Crudup plays the weirdest, most enigmatic creepy-insinuation-guy ever. Talk about hiding a dirty secret! There's an overall hit-or-miss quality of comedy and action in The Watch, though there are plenty more tick marks in the hit column. It's all bad-mannered good fun with the badge of a hard-15 rating worn as proudly as a giant splooge of green alien slime. --Ted Fry