Pineapple Express

As I continue to partake in my trial membership with Netflix, I decided to watch a couple movies on my wife's laptop - a great 15.3" wide screen HP.

There are so many choices of movies, I wasn't sure what I was really in the mood to watch. I usually default to comedies, but I also was in a reflective mood.

I decided to settle on Pineapple Express for my first movie of the evening.

Pineapple Express casts Judd Apatow's group of actors, most notably Seth Rogen. Everything I have seen with Seth in I have liked, even Superbad (not a huge fan). I felt pretty confident it would be at least entertaining!

In addition to Seth, you have James Franco, Kevin Corrigan, Craig Robinson, Gary Cole, Rosie Perez, Ed Begley Jr. and Nora Dunn. An excellent cast with excellent performances. Out of all the great performances, I found James Franco's was the most entertaining.

Now, never having smoked weed, I always feel like I am on a learning curve with stoner movies. I get the point: people like smoking dope. Understood.

It started off with Dale (Seth Rogen) driving around making a call to a radio show smoking a joint. As he drives around, he dons disguises in order to serve people with subpoenas. A good intro, efficient way to develop the lead character for the audience.

When then move on to meeting his high school girlfriend (Amber Heard), and his lonely, needy weed dealer, Saul.

After a mild cross joint (literally a joint in the shape of a cross) bonding session between the two, Dale heads off to serve a man with the same name as Saul's supplier's supplier - a drug lord. Of course, no surprise, it is the drug lord, Ted (Gary Cole).

As Dale smokes a joint in front of the drug lord's house, enter a crooked cop (Rosie Perez) who enters the house weapon drawn. Several gunshots layer, Dale sees the two kill a wounded Asian man. He freaks out, throws his unfinished joint out the window and the chaos begins.

I don't want to spoil the real fun of this movie, but suffice it to say an average guy is thrown in to extraordinary situations and by the pure will not to die, comes out on top of a drug war.

While there are elements of this movie that are a stretch, you don't care because it is so well done and entertaining. The action scenes are well done and much better than expected for a stoner movie. The climatic battle scene is classic, but you have to watch the whole movie to truly appreciate it!

Another thing I liked about this movie was the appropriate use of profanity. Unlike Superbad, which used profanity in massive excess, Pineapple Express actually used it in the proper contexts.

I would recommend Pineapple Express as it is definitely worth checking out, even paying to rent!