For This Man-Child, the Thrill of the Chase Has Yet to Grow Old
‘Hit & Run,’ a Comedy Written by and Starring Dax Shepard
Jeffrey Reed/Open Road Films
Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell in "Hit & Run."
Dax Shepard, the writer, co-director and star of the silly, occasionally amusing car chase comedy “Hit & Run,” isn’t the first actor to be defined by a signature television role. Like James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano, Crosby Braverman, the California man-child Mr. Shepardplays on “Parenthood,” (53 episodes and counting), is so indelible that, like it or not, everything else Mr. Shepard does registers as a pallid reflection.
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His character in “Hit & Run,” Yul Perkins, is a sweet-natured, shady goofball in the witness protection program who goes by the pseudonym Charlie Bronson. (Don’t ask.) Charlie has the same ingenuous puppy-dog stare of a naughty boy playing dumb, and the same vacant, toothy grin and Owen Wilson drawl as Crosby, but none of the depth.
When his live-in girlfriend, Annie (Kristen Bell, Mr. Shepard’s real fiancée), is handed an opportunity for a better job in Los Angeles, Charlie decides to throw caution to the wind and drive her there. He has been going stir crazy in Milton, the sleepy central California retreat where he is watched over by Randy (Tom Arnold), a buffoonish United States marshal whose solution to automotive mishaps is to shoot his own van.
Annie believes Charlie’s assertion that he has been stashed in the middle of nowhere as protection after his testimony put bank robbers in jail. What he hasn’t told her is that he drove their getaway car and turned state’s evidence to avoid prison. When Annie’s jealous ex-boyfriend, Gil (Michael Rosenbaum), discovers Charlie’s true identity on the Internet, he tips off the lead robber, Alex (Bradley Cooper), who has been released from prison, and the games begin.
Mr. Shepard, a car enthusiast, has cited the 1977 movie “Smokey and the Bandit” as an inspiration for “Hit & Run.” As the characters chase one another around in circles — Charlie’s pride and joy is a souped-up 1967 Lincoln Continental — the movie feels like a grown-up version of little boys making whooshing noises and staging collisions while playing with toys on a living room floor. It belongs to the same star-and-his-pals-cutting-up genre as the lesser comedies by Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack.
Desperate for novelty, the story throws in a subplot in which a gay sheriff hooks up with Randy through a Grindr-like smartphone app called Pouncer. But the movie is too squeamish and dumb to treat this strand as more than a passing notion. It is just another prank in a comedy that feels as if it were dreamed up in the wee hours between bong hits and shots of tequila.
“Hit & Run” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has nudity, sexual situations, violence and strong language.
Hit & Run
Opens on Wednesday nationwide.
Directed by Dax Shepard and David Palmer; written by Mr. Shepard; director of photography, Bradley Stonesifer; edited by Keith Croket; music by Julian Wass; production design by Emily Bloom; costumes by Brooke Dulien; produced by Andrew Panay, Nate Tuck and Kim Waltrip; released by Open Road. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes.
WITH: Dax Shepard (Charlie Bronson/Yul Perkins), Kristen Bell (Annie), Bradley Cooper (Alex), Tom Arnold (Randy), Joy Bryant (Neve), Kristin Chenoweth (Debby), David Koechner (Sanders) and Michael Rosenbaum (Gil).
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