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Online Watch The Slammin' Salmon Movie Trailer free The Slammin' Salmon 2009 film Lyrics English Hollywood Video Songs review Preview Music Director cast crew romantic comedy Action Horror Five films into their career and a mere eight years after hitting cult-item gold with Super Troopers, the Broken Lizard comedy troupe filet another type of working stiff in The Slammin' Salmon. Though both films posess a loose and light improvisational mood and fit a similar template, the only cult that could worship a film like Salmon is the kind that might also spike their Kool-Aid with strychnine.
Named for the high-end seafood restaurant that is its setting, the film opens arbitrarily on waiter Rich (Kevin Heffernan, serving as director as well) attempting to summon the courage to tell his boss he's quitting. A simple task, one would think, except that the restaurant's owner is Cleon "Slammin'" Salmon (Michael Clarke Duncan), an ex-heavyweight champion who has killed men in the ring and who is, to put it mildly, batshit crazy and unwaveringly nonsensical. Rich recedes back into the kitchen, fearing the concussion Salmon will no doubt serve him for disobedience.
Fast-forward to Rich as manager of the still-successful bistro and brother-in-law to Salmon after knocking up his little sister. Commanding a platoon of jackasses and two somewhat reasonable women, it is now his charge to recoup the money Salmon lost in a bet with a Yakuza warlord while hunting humans in the rainforest (oldest excuse in the book). At Rich's service are Nuts (Jay Chandrasekhar), a pharmaceutically-regulated lunatic; Connor (Steve Lemme), an erstwhile prime-time star in need of dough; Dave and Donnie (Paul Soter), a sweet-and-sour set of twins; and Guy (Erik Stolhanske), a beach-blonde, superficial schemer.
Left with paltry laughs and no character are April Bowlby and Cobie Smulders as Mia and Tara, the two waitresses in this nest of buffoons. The role of women in comedy has been endlessly scrutinized and analyzed in the Age of Apatow, but rarely have I witnessed a more wanton disregard for anything resembling attention to nuance or (mercy!) wit in terms of female characters. The film blatantly allows the boys to play while the women serve as either one-note sight-gags or complacent mother hens.
Heffernan, working from a script written (I imagine) in crayon on a wet bar napkin by himself and the rest of Broken Lizard, tries to give this bland dish taste by peppering it with a few guest spots, most notably Will Forte, Vivica A. Fox, and Heroes' Sendhil Ramamurthy. Though perhaps one should never look down on a film with the comedic cunning to name a bitchy soul singer after a nutmeg-derived spread, The Slammin' Salmon is nevertheless a mess, bereft of anything resembling self-control, timing, or delivery. The spontaneity and speed of Super Troopers has given way here to an aimlessly stiff structure and genuine laziness. True, the earlier film also had a terrific supporting turn by Brian Cox. In contrast, Slammin' Salmon is weighed down by Duncan's intolerable lunatic.
Release Date: December 11, 2009 (limited)
Studio: Anchor Bay Films
Director: Kevin Heffernan
Screenwriter: Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske
Starring: Michael Clarke Duncan, Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, Cobie Smulders, April Bowlby, Olivia Munn, Vivica A. Fox, Morgan Fairchild
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: Not Available