“Without A Paddle” (Paramount Pictures)
“Without A Paddle” is a new comedy starring Seth Green, Matthew Lillard and Dax Shepard. They play three young men who have been buddies since childhood. When the fourth member of their childhood group dies the remaining ones decide to take a canoe trip in his memory. They end up, up the river without a paddle, a canoe, or anything else.
Dan (Green), Jerry (Lillard), and Tom (Shepard) are an odd group of friends. Dan is a doctor, Jerry is involved in a relationship, and Tom is the wild man in the group. They have nothing in common except their childhood, and the ties that bind are stretching thin on this adventure.
One major problem is they get on the wrong side of a pair of mountain men (Ethan Suplee and Abraham Benrubi). For the last half of the movie they are running away from them. This does cause them to run into two flower children who are living in the top of a tree.
In the final moments of the film Burt Reynolds makes a cameo appearance as a man who has been living in the wilderness for thirty years. In full Grizzly Adams mode, Reynolds is almost unrecognizable.
Aside from Reynolds cameo the only person who seems able to create a believable character is Green. He does manage to make Dr. Dan a real person whereas Tom and Jerry are only cartoon characters (no pun intended).
The movie is rated PG-13 for profanity, violence and some sexually suggestive scenes.
If you are expecting some laughs and you have already seen the trailer for the film, know that the best ones were shown there to lure people in to the theaters. It showed the bear attack scene, the keeping warm scene, and the hairy-legged girl scene. There isn’t much to laugh about in the other scenes that fill up the rest of the running time.
“Without A Paddle” is also a movie without a script, without a “star,” and without much comedy. As you can tell the paddle is the least of the audiences’ worries.
I scored “Without A Paddle” an oar-less 3 out of 10.
