Friendship

Directed by Andrew DeYoung, Friendship details the chaos that ensues after an oddball family man (Tim Robinson’s Craig Waterman) becomes acquaintances with a handsome, much cooler new neighbor (Paul Rudd’s Austin Carmichael). It’s an exceedingly minor premise that’s employed as a springboard for a series of irreverent jokes and gags, and there’s little doubt, certainly, that the movie fares best within its entertaining and frequently laugh-out-loud funny first half – with Robinson’s predictably go-for-broke, larger-than-life efforts enhancing even the simplest of sequences (eg the cancer-support-group opening is certainly more hilarious than one would’ve anticipated). And while the picture is likewise packed with humorous asides and digressions, including a comically banal drug trip and Craig’s botched efforts at apologizing to a group of guys, Friendship does suffer from a hit-and-miss midsection that contains a host of palpable lulls and less-than-enthralling stretches – with the 100 minute running time certainly exacerbating the needlessly protracted feel. The end result is a watchable comedy that could (and should) have been a whole lot better, and yet it’s impossible to deny the knee-slapping impact of several of its over-the-top set-pieces.

**1/2 out of ****