A bad hangover
Cert 15 ★★★
Making an imaginary friend for life is one step closer to an early grave in a raunchy comedy of errors directed by Peter Farrelly, who tag-teamed his brother Bobby for Dumb And Dumber and There’s Something About Mary but flies solo here.
Bodily fluids abound and an adorable pet pooch almost meets a sticky end in this filthy-minded romp of little white lies and escalating deception. It would make a fine drinking buddy for The Hangover since both films test fraternal bonds after misguided men press their self-destruct buttons during a booze-fuelled hiatus in Las Vegas.
The fools are best buddies Dean (Zac Efron), JT (Andrew Santino) and Wes ( Jermaine Fowler) who invented fictional fall guy Ricky Stanicky when they were children to take the blame for an ill-judged Halloween prank.
More than 20 years later, Ricky has his own Instagram account and Dean, JT and Wes maintain consistency with their fibs by recording the soap opera of Ricky’s life in a handwritten bible.
When JT’S wife (Anja Savcic) and Dean’s journalist girlfriend (Lex Scott Davis) question Ricky’s repeated no-shows at family events, South Jersey’s premier
X-rated rock ’n’ roll impersonator, Rod Rimestead ( John Cena), agrees to embody the chaotic role of a lifetime.
With six credited writers, Ricky Stanicky is certainly a case of too many cooks flinging spaghetti at a wall to see if something sticks. Jokes hit as many easy targets as they miss but the pleasantly lingering aftertaste is sweetness. Cena is a hoot, dressed as a schoolgirl-era Britney Spears in one scene as his so-called life goes into a tailspin. His method-acting maniac is instantly likeable while the film around him exercises poor judgment, squandering William H Macy as the butt of a single running joke that wheezes and puffs before anyone has broken sweat.