CNN
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Playfully letting John Cena flex his comedy muscle tissue, “Ricky Stanicky” works from an amusing premise that owes an unlikely debt to a 51-year-old “MASH” episode, during which an imaginary character have to be delivered to life. Additionally serving as a reunion of Zac Efron and director Peter Farrelly, the execution yields an solely fitfully humorous R-rated comedy, a style that’s discovered a receptive platform by way of Amazon.
Like seemingly all friendship-based comedies, this one begins with a flashback, as a trio of boys get into bother and desperately blame what occurred on “Ricky Stanicky,” a made-up child.
Leap to the current day, and Dean (Efron) alongside along with his friends JT (“Dave’s” Andrew Santino) and Wes (Jermaine Fowler) are nonetheless invoking the identify – in a lot the best way “MASH’s” Hawkeye did with “Captain Tuttle” – though right here, largely to get away for guys weekends or escape conditions they’d fairly keep away from, similar to a child bathe. Feeling smug concerning the ruse, they wryly toast Stanicky as “One of the best buddy we by no means had.”
Because it occurs, their newest juvenile escapade takes them to Atlantic Metropolis, the place they meet an odd lounge-entertainer kind who goes by the identify “Rock Exhausting” Rod (Cena), proper earlier than the ruse blows up of their faces. Pressured to provide Stanicky after utilizing him as their excuse, Dean has the intense thought of hiring Rod to painting Stanicky at a bris for JT’s child.
Not surprisingly given the movie’s below-the-belt bent, a circumcision gag follows, whereas Rod has to vamp his method by all of the fabulous attributes the trio have ascribed to Stanicky by the years.
John Cena is ‘Ricky Stanicky’
Though Rod has dutifully studied the “bible” they’ve assembled, that units up loads of extremely awkward moments to maintain deceptive each their romantic companions and Dean and JT’s boss (William H. Macy, entering into the foolish spirit).
After profitable a much-debated Oscar with “Green Book,” Farrelly collaborated with Efron on one other streaming film, 2022’s “The Biggest Beer Run Ever.” “Ricky Stanicky” shifts nearer to the form of raunchy comedic fare for which Farrelly was identified when working with brother Bobby on motion pictures like “There’s One thing About Mary.”
Often crediting a script to 6 writers (Farrelly being one among them) isn’t a very good signal – and the movie does have a sitcom-writers-room really feel about it – but there are some moderately good laughs peppered all through, in addition to a darker, extra severe aspect about Dean’s tough childhood that feels too incongruous with the film’s total tone.
Whereas edgier comedies have discovered the sledding pretty tough on the field workplace of late (“Anybody However You” being a notable exception), Amazon has exhibited a passion for the style, together with the latest Snoop Dogg automobile “The Underdoggs.”
Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cena has neatly taken benefit of his tough-guy physique to carve a path into broad comedy, from the DC sequence “Peacemaker” to “Blockers,” “Trainwreck” and “Enjoying with Hearth.” “Ricky Stanicky” is perhaps imaginary and doesn’t measure as much as its promise, however when it comes to that basket inside the wrestler-turned-actor’s filmography, it at the very least matches Cena like a glove.
“Ricky Stanicky” premieres March 7 on Amazon’s Prime Video. It’s rated R.