Hot Rod 2007

Rod Kimble is a naf a slacker living in a small US town with his mom his younger brother and his stepfather whose respect he craves. He also misses his dead dad whom he thinks was Evel Knievels backup. Rod a manchild believes that he is a stunt man. When his stepfather needs an operation with help from his brother and his slacker pals Rod hatches a plan to set a schoolbusjumping record on his moped. First his crew and he have to raise money to rent the buses and build the ramp. Trouble is Rods inept at his chosen career. Looming failure is complicated by the return of Denise Rods nextdoor neighbor and secret heartthrob who is home from college. Is public humiliation at hand

Review

I watched Hot Rod for the same reasons i've watched any of the generic American comedies that Hollywood seems to churn out. Because i had nothing better to do i didn't want to have to think and i expected to be very mildly amused. I was very pleasantly surprised when Hot Rod turned out to have a bit of heart. This movie seems to occupy a middle point between the fairly predictable but fun Blades of Glory and the rather more charming and oddball Napoleon Dynamite. Most recent American comedies seem to function like early Tom Cruise films Take a vocation and run with it. Blades of Glory had the fairly ridiculous world of figure skating to draw from and i guess you can't really go wrong with a grown man in lycra on ice skates but it's humour relied heavily on that. Hot Rod is a film about a (pretty terrible) young stuntman who's objective is to raise enough money to save his dying stepdad by means of a life saving operation. His underlying reason for doing so however is because he wants to earn his respect by beating him in a fight. This little quirk and more are what make Hot Rod a little more satisfying than other films in its genre and despite some rather obvious jokes and a criminally underused Will Arnett it's well worth watching.