I wonder if “We’re the Millers” even had a casting call. Jason Sudeikis is as comfortable in his role as the small-time drug dealer who heads up the faux Miller clan as Vince Vaughn was in “Wedding Crashers” (like this movie, penned by Bob Fisher and Steve Faber). Jennifer Aniston continues to play against the Rachel type — just as she did in “Horrible Bosses” — as the stripper “mom.”
And the quirky Kathryn Hahn plays her typical role, here as the wife of “Parks and Recreation’s” Nick Offerman — who will always have a certain Ron Swanson-ness to him. They play the fellow RVing couple that the “Millers” meet during the course of their covert drug running in Mexico. Hahn was also paired with Aniston in “Wanderlust,” although they get more intimate here in an awkward camping-tent tryst.
“We’re the Millers,” which also stars newcomer Will Poulter as the nerdy TLC-song-memorizing “son” and Nickelodeon star Emma Roberts as the troubled and troublesome “daughter,” delivers exactly what it promises in the preview — nothing more, nothing less. But hey, I liked the preview. The premise of a down-on-his-luck Sudeikis being forced into pot smuggling is great, and the writers pepper in some good comedic scenarios. Make Offerman and Hahn into a typically bland couple (she loves holding babies, he rocks jorts and flip-down sunglasses), then have them interact with four desperate people pretending to be a family. The jokes pretty much write themselves, but that doesn’t mean it’s not hilarious when someone not in on the scam witnesses Kenny getting kissing lessons from his “mom” and “sister.”
The one notably against-type role is “The Office’s” Ed Helms as the orca-owning drug kingpin, and that’s good for a fair amount of over-the-top humor. (As Sudeikis meets with Helms, the whale chows down in the giant tank behind the crime lord’s desk.) “We’re the Millers” keeps the violence and scariness fairly tame despite the subject matter, falling very much on the side of silly comedy rather than political commentary. Intentionally or not, it does make a strong anti-Drug War point when the Millers see a motorist being mercilessly beaten by border officials for smoking a small joint. But that may have been just to have the Millers sweat it out in their RV that’s packed to the brim with marijuana. Or the writers may have been simply portraying the Drug War and immigration policies in all their real-world absurdity, just with a dash of parody.
At any rate, “Meet the Millers” is not an issue-oriented film. It’s more in its wheelhouse when delivering its centerpiece private-parts-themed gag — one that would’ve brought the house down back in the days before “There’s Something About Mary” and “American Pie.” Today, the shock value isn’t on the same level, but it still works; and in the movie, Roberts’ Casey shares the “White Nerd Testicle Fail” clip as a million-hit YouTube video. “We’re the Millers” is a certainly a notch above such a video. But it doesn’t go much beyond the easy (albeit funny) jokes, and at year’s end, it’ll blend into the comedy pack.
