#14 THE INTERVIEW

#14 THE INTERVIEW (19/02/15)

Starring Seth Rogen, James Franco and Randall Park. Written by Dan Sterling, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.
Franco and Rogen play cable chat-show host and his producer who out M&M on camera and get an invite to interview Kim Jong-Un in North Korea. The C.I.A recruit them to assassinate Kim and the rest, as they say, is easy peasy. This is one of those films that came to the cinemas with an amazing amount of publicity thanks in so small part to the hacking attack that Sony suffered at the hands of North Korea, which is odd because chances if North Korea had just ignored this film, it would have sunk without a trace. As it is, the controversy made it the highest grossing digital movie ever.

Overall, this was a surprising funny film, Franco and Rogen seem to becoming the 21st Century Bing and Hope and their obvious off-screen friendship gives them an easy and likeable chemistry on screen. Filled with laugh out moments, gross out humour and one genuinely touching sequence where Franco goes out on a day-long bro-date with Kim and they bond over their love of a shared song and a tank.

This is pure fantasy and in no ways grounded in reality, sharing the same passion of fact based historical accuracy as Inglorious Basterds. Overall this was a very enjoyable and funny film, perhaps not as funny as last year's Alpha Pappa but still highly enjoyable and well worth a punt.

8/10