Clear 8 oC
| Cedar Rapids |
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| Written by Carey |
| Monday, 15 August 2011 19:00 |
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Tim (Ed Helms - The Hangover, Evan Almighty) is an insurance salesman for Brown Star Insurance. He lives in a small town - Brown Valley, Wisconsin. Not married, but he occasionally sleeps with his high school teacher, Miss Vanderhei (Aliens, Avatar) - Macy. Tim started working at Brown Star Insurance at age 16 and never went anywhere afterwards. He has a whole routine going, but his life changes when his star co-worker Roger (Thomas Lennon - Night at the Museum, Reno 911: Miami) kills himself by auto-erotic asphyxiation. Tim’s boss gives him Roger’s Two Diamond presentation to give in Cedar Rapids. He is sent off with the advice of avoiding Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly - Chicago, Magnolia) at all costs. After taking his first airplane flight he checks into the hotel to find his assigned roommate is a black man (Isiah Whitlock Jr. - Cadillac Records, Pieces of April), which shocks him a little. Tim’s town has no African-Americans. In order to save some money he takes on a third roommate, who turns out to be Dean Ziegler. At the conference Tim meets an odd woman named Joan (Anne Heche - Donnie Brasco, Wag the Dog). After sleeping with Joan, who is married, he finds out that Macy is sleeping with other men. Joan also tells Tim that Roger paid for the Two Diamond Awards. Tim’s world is really coming crashing down now and things do not get any better when he gets caught at a party with drug using ruffians and that his boss Bill (Stephen Root - No Country for Old Men, Finding Nemo) arrives to tell him he’s sold the company and the Brown Valley office is going close. It is time for Tim to take action. Tim is a fish-out-of-water and that is always ripe for comedy fodder. And in Cedar Rapids it is exploited to the fullest. His naivete about prostitutes, black people and not wanting to use his credit card. Ignorance mixed with innocence = funny! Though Tim is quite an odd character Ed Helms keeps him human and not just a cartoon character. There is humour, but also plenty of humanity. A nice combination. An odd mixture for comedy, but an effective one. It works because like the characters it is a little different. Ed Helms has perfected the nerd character on The Office and is excellent at going for laughs full throttle. He is a man who doesn’t know the meaning of holding back. Helms will do anything for a laugh, which is an admirable and almost required quality in comedy. Sometimes the film does drag a little it does almost make insurance seem interesting. Or at least the people involved in it. Special Features: |
At first I thought this was just a vehicle for slapstick humour and silly situations and yes it does include these sort of things, but there is also a depth to Miguel Arteta’s (The Good Girl, Youth in Revolt) film Cedar Rapids. It is heart-warming as well as funny.