'The Interview' Film Review, Sony Hack: James Franco, Seth Rogen Star

December 17, 2014 6:43 PM EST

Correction appended

A decade ago, when Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Team America: World Police made mock of Kim Jong Il, the North Korean regime didn’t threaten retaliation — maybe because Kim, like all the other people in the movie, was portrayed as a marionette.

The Democratic People’s Republic, under King Jong Il’s son Kim Jong Un, apparently had a more severe reaction to The Interview, in which two American TV journalists (James Franco and Seth Rogen) are charged by the CIA with killing the dictator while they’re in North Korea to interview him. Someone who took issue with this scenario hacked the computers of Sony Pictures, spilling internal gossip and downloading five Sony movies, including four yet to be released. As Stephen Colbert proclaimed on Monday night, the perpetrator “has to be North Korea. The only other person with that capability is a 12-year-old with BitTorrent.”

Hollywood’s escalating tension about cyberterrorism, which is no joke, led to the five largest North American movie chains refusing to show The Interview, and then to Sony’s announcement that it was withdrawing the movie, originally scheduled to open Christmas Day. That’s never happened to a major-studio mainstream film just a week before it was due to appear on thousands of screens.

So reviews like this one may be the public’s only way, for now, to find out what’s actually in the movie. One mixed verdict on The Interview: Beyond the ballsy premise — which got green-lighted by Sony Pictures’ U.S. moguls and its Japanese overlords, before (as the emails reveal) some late editing edicts from above — this is your basic Rogen farce about sloppy-happy-harried stoners trying to bluff their way out of trouble.

We mean Knocked Up, Superbad, Pineapple Express, Neighbors, This Is the End and nearly all other movies Rogen has starred in or written, possibly excepting his voice work for Horton Hears a Who! and the Kung Fu Pandas. Directing The Interview with his longtime writing pal Evan Goldberg, Rogen serves up the usual farrago of sexual outrage and guy-bonding, only this time in the guise of nervy satire using real names. (When Sacha Baron Cohen played The Dictator, he made fun of a whole swath of Middle East tyrants, not just one.)

In a nifty opening scene, a lovely Korean girl sings a wistful, stirring anthem to Western values that U-turns into an international death wish; one line translates as “May they drown in their blood and feces.” (It’s an extension of the “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” song from Bob Fosse’s Cabaret film, in which the camera slowly pulls back to reveal that the handsome blond teen singing it is a Hitler Youth.) Cut to the syndicated show Skylark Tonight, kind of Barbara Walters goes TMZ, with host Dave Skylark (Franco) interviewing Enimem. Suddenly the rap artist declares he’s a homosexual, saying that in rap lyrics “I’ve pretty much been leaving a breadcrumb trail of gayness.”

The Most Controversial Films of All Time

James Franco;Seth Rogen — *The Interview*, 2014 The James Franco-Seth Rogen movie hadn’t even been released when it made its greatest impact. *The Interview*, about two Americans on a mission to kill Kim Jong-un, has sparked conversations about the tastefulness -- or not -- of depicting the killing of a foreign head of state. But it also is widely seen as having sparked the Sony hacking scandal, as the hackers, known as the Guardians of Peace, have urged Sony not to release the film. The ripple effect of the email hack saw off-color remarks about Angelina Jolie, Aaron Sorkin, and President Obama between Sony executives go public.Columbia

'The Birth Of A Nation' — *Birth of a Nation*, 1915 Birth of a Nation is held in high esteem as one of the most ambitious and innovative early films. It has also, in the near-century since its release, been derided for its use of blackface to depict black men as sexually rapacious and its characterization of the KKK as heroes. Is it possible to admire a film’s technical excellence while acknowledging that its content is deeply offensive? Many film scholars, who point to *Birth of a Nation* as part of the foundation of modern film, believe so.Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Charles Chaplin And Jack Oakie In 'The Great Dictator' — *The Great Dictator*, 1940 Charlie Chaplin’s lampooning of Hitler came before the U.S. was necessarily ready to hear it -- the country hadn’t yet entered World War II yet. *The Great Dictator* was controversial both for its advancement of anti-Hitler rhetoric and, at the same time, its turning Hitler into a figure of comedy. United Artists/Getty Images

Ray Milland & Jane Wyman In 'The Lost Weekend' — *The Lost Weekend*, 1945 Billy Wilder’s frank depiction of alcoholism, anchored with a tragic performance from Ray Milland, was startling for its time. Though it won several Oscars and the Palme d’Or, it had been, before its release, far from a sure thing. The success of *The Lost Weekend* allowed for fuller depictions of social issues on film, even though it could be uncomfortable.Paramount/Getty Images

Sue Lyon And James Mason In 'Lolita' — *Lolita*, 1962 This film was perhaps the first of director Stanley Kubrick’s to directly court controversy; the poster famously asked “How did they ever make a movie of Lolita?” and the question was very much worth asking. *Lolita*, the novel, is a strange and surreal look at an older man’s obsession with “nymphets,” or young girls; the film manages to carry across the same subject matter, though Lolita herself was aged up to avoid outright banning.MGM/Getty Images

Bonnie And Clyde — *Bonnie and Clyde*, 1967 Arthur Penn’s depiction of the short, glamorous lives of two bank robbers kicked off the New Hollywood era and scandalized audiences with its over-the-top violence. *Bonnie and Clyde* made its subjects look like, well, movie stars -- and then killed them in a brutal, seemingly endless hail of gunfire. Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

"A Clockwork Orange" Hawk Films, Ltd. December 19, 1971 — *A Clockwork Orange*, 1971 Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s dystopian drama features shocking sex and violence, to the degree that the film was restricted within the U.K. for decades. Its central notion, of behavioral therapy as a force for evil, has also provoked debate since the film’s release.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Dustin Hoffman And Meryl Streep In 'Kramer vs. Karmer' — *Kramer vs. Kramer*, 1979 This domestic drama, starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep as a couple whose marriage ends, was upfront about the challenges of raising children and the degree to which married life could be fundamentally unsatisfying.Columbia/Getty Images

Michael Douglas And Sharon Stone In 'Basic Instinct' — *Basic Instinct*, 1992 This film made Sharon Stone, for a brief time, one of the most compelling movie stars on Earth. Her role as the voracious novelist and serial killer Catherine Tramell outraged gay audiences who viewed her as a homophobic stereotype, and spooked some men who were unaccustomed to Stone’s forthright sexuality. Either way, no one could stop talking about Catherine, or about Stone.TriStar/Getty Images

Nicole Kidman In 'Eyes Wide Shut' — *Eyes Wide Shut*, 1999 Stanley Kubrick’s final film was perfectly in keeping with his careerlong interest in provocation. *Eyes Wide Shut* depicts a seamy New York underworld in which just about everyone is looking for sex, power, or both. Though the film’s graphic sexuality (including a scene at an orgy) was shocking, it was its depiction of the act of love as a transaction that really unsettled audiences.Warner Brothers/Getty Images

*Requiem for a Dream*, 2000 Darren Aronofsky’s breakthrough film, based on the work of Hubert Selby, Jr., was unabashed in its depiction of drugs’ effects. Each of the four principal characters suffers, brutally, for his or her addiction, culminating in one character’s psychotic break, another’s amputated arm, and a third’s descent into prostitution. The film’s miserabilist outlook, graphic sex, and body-horror imagery are as effective an antidrug campaign as exists. Artisan Entertainment

*Fahrenheit 9/11*, 2004 The 2004 presidential election was ugly to an unprecedented degree, with attacks on John Kerry’s service from the right’s Swift Boat Veterans for truth and this documentary-length Molotov cocktail tossed at George W. Bush from director Michael Moore. Moore, who’d previously been booed at the 2003 Oscars for an anti-Bush speech, mixed together insinuations about voter fraud in Florida and ties between the Bush and bin Laden families into an antiwar statement. In its sheer provocation and palpable anger, it was the perfect film for its polarized time; the fact that it was received very differently by audiences of different political persuasions seemed somehow apt.Lionsgate

MCDPAOF NW021 — *The Passion of the Christ*, 2004 This film, depicting the torture and eventual death of Jesus, was one of the biggest hits of all time. But it hadn’t necessarily had a clear path to acclaim; pre-release, the film was pilloried for perceived anti-Semitism. As audiences flocked over the weeks preceding Easter, some criticized director Mel Gibson for an excessively violent and sadistic vision of Jesus’s death.Newmarket

MCDBORA FE048 — *Borat*, 2006 Sacha Baron Cohen’s depiction of a Kazakh immigrant interacting with real people stateside showed America in a terrible light; it was hilarious, painful viewing. But for months after the film’s release, questions over just how fair *Borat* had been to its participants persisted. And Baron Cohen’s career continued to push boundaries of taste, with subsequent movies lampooning gay men (*Bruno*) and Sub-Saharan African heads of state (*The Dictator*).20th Century Fox

These two excellent bits in the first few minutes make a skeptic wonder: Have Rogen and Goldberg honed their talents to create, or smoked enough pot to stumble into, a movie that works from start to finish? But as always, they’re just teasing our expectations only to deflate them. The joke barrage becomes hit-or-miss, as if the creators — including screenwriter Dan Sterling, working from a story by Rogen and Greenberg — don’t know or care which is which.

Aaron, the Skyline Tonight producer played by Rogen, does know that his show isn’t 60 Minutes — because a 60 Minutes producer tells him so — and sees a chance to do News That Matters when he learns that North Korea’s Shining Star is Skylark’s No. 1 fan. Yes, he would sit for an interview, instantly stoking dim Dave’s dream of the greatest confrontation of journalist and potentate since David Frost corralled Richard Nixon. “In 10 years, Ron Howard’s going to make a movie out of this,” he exults, mis-recalling the Howard film title as Frosty Nixon. All is swell until the CIA, in the lissome form of Agent Lacey (Lizzy Caplan from Masters of Sex), adds a wrinkle to Dave and Aaron’s assignment: kill Kim.

Acting with Franco on and off for half his 32 years, since Freaks and Geeks, Rogen plays Aaron as a smart, underachieving 12-year-old, with Franco as his dumb, cute friend. And say this for Franco: few stars can radiate the joy he does in playing an idiot who happens to be popular. Uttering such pearls of sagacity as “This is 2014, women are smart now,” Dave is handsome, empty TV charisma rampant. And the sick thing is that, even to a skeptic, Franco makes grinning inanity attractive.

Pushing bromance even further than in other Rogen movies, the schlub and the stud exchange hugs, kisses and homoerotic endearments. “I am Gollum and you’re my Precious,” Dave tells Aaron. “I will cherish every moment; I will rub your tummy when you get back” — this when Aaron has to retrieve a CIA poison canister that he’s obliged to hide in a body part where, according to the Senate Torture Report, the agency’s interrogators sometimes inserted hummus in their terror suspects. Monitoring the pickup from Langley, Agent Lacey must be pleased that Aaron more or less voluntarily gives himself a colonic. See, that proves it’s not torture!

Amid all the cartoon characterizations, the most complex and sympathetic — or at least pathetic — figure is Kim, played with alternating charm and menace by Randall Park (Danny Chung on the most recent season of Veep). Like Dave and Aaron, Kim is stuck in horny preadolescence. He loves basketball — with the hoops lowered so he can dunk — and Katy Perry, but with the poignancy of a poor little rich boy who must play the adult in his public appearances. Meeting Dave gives him a chance to reveal the real Kim, not a god but just one of the guys: he pees and poos.

Dave’s possibly genuine hookup with this man-child might pose a threat to his American BFF, except that Aaron’s having a fling with Sook, Kim’s most trusted security guard, a role to which Diana Bang (Jiao on Bates Motel) also brings more craft and heft to the project than required of the Occidental performers. Indeed, if the real Kim were to see The Interview, he might be flattered by the portraits of the two main North Koreans — at least until the last reel of political score-settling, war games and Tarantinian stuff blowing up.

In its parade of ribald gags and infantile preoccupation with body parts, not to mention a climactic decapitation, water-balloon style, The Interview displays all the mindless excesses that repressive regimes condemn in Hollywood movies. Which may be Rogen and Goldberg’s point — “See, here’s what they hate about us. And you’re gonna love it.”

Maybe you will love The Interview — if you can ever see the movie — as much as some people hate or fear it. But if you’re hoping for any cogent political satire here, then the joke’s on you.

Correction: This article originally misidentified The Interview’s screenwriter. He is Dan Sterling.

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