Movie: Ricky Stanicky
Production Company: Footloose Productions
Director: Peter Farrelly
Producers: John Jacobs, Thorsten Schumacher, Paul Currie, Michael DeLuca
Scriptwriters: Jeffrey Bushell, Brian Jarvis, James Lee Freeman, Peter Farrelly, Pete Jones, Mike Cerrone
Main Cast: Zac Efron, John Cena, Andrew Santino, Jermaine Fowler
Release Date: 7th March 2024
Running Time: 113 minutes
Certificate: 15
Introduction: The performances are fine and watchable in this otherwise staggeringly unfunny comedy from Peter Farrelly.
Synopsis: Three childhood friends create an imaginary friend called ‘Ricky Stanicky’ as an excuse to get them out of trouble. Twenty years on, they are still pulling the same trick, only this time, things begin to go disastrously wrong.
Analysis: I am all for gross out comedies, but only when done well (I must admit, I am a fan of most Sacha Baren Cohen vehicles for example). When done badly however, as is the case with ‘Ricky Stanicky’, the end result is just one of stone faced comedy whose idea of funny is so spectacularly misjudged. To say that some of the jokes are in such poor taste would be rather understating it. I’ll save you from the details but I could not believe the areas that this went into. The performances are fine but nothing more, the cast look like they are having fun. John Cena, though, is the best and funniest thing to watch as he’s evidently having a ball here. As is clear from his role as ‘Peacemaker’ in the DC Universe, he can do comedy and he is good at it, so credit where credit is due. I also think he has come a long way in his acting career and is getting better and better.
Zac Efron clearly took this just to enjoy himself and have an easy ride having come off the fantastic ‘The Iron Claw’ where he played the famous wrestler Kevin Von Erich (both he and that film were snubbed horrendously by the Oscar’s in my opinion). He is welcome to do anything he wants after that. I chuckled maybe a couple of times (if that) which is really poor for a comedy. Considering Peter Farrelly has a very successful body of comedy attached to his CV (such as ‘Dumb and Dumber’ and ‘There’s Something About Mary’) and directed a Best Picture Oscar winner in the form of ‘Green Book’, this just falls flat on it’s face for me.
However, when he’s really off form, he does things like ‘Movie 43’ which can only be described as an abomination of cinema. There are really crude jokes in ‘Ricky Stanicky’ (most originating from song lyrics), which I often like in films, but here they just didn’t stick the landing, just like the film.
On Amazon Prime.
Overall Rating: 3.5/10 – Poor
Target Audience: 15+
Content Warning: strong sex references, language, drug misuse
Recommendation: No
