Ricky makes it tricky
Efron, Cena bring friendship to life in ‘Ricky Stanicky’
While psychology’s take on the benefits and downfalls of having an imaginary friend have varied over the years, most research has broadly agreed that the presence of an imaginary friend can help a child with their empathy and emotional intelligence later in life. But what about adults with imaginary friends? Further to that point, what happens when three grown men all share the same imaginary friend?
Prime Video’s new comedy “Ricky Stanicky,” premiering Thursday, March 7, boldly attempts to answer those questions by way of deceit, crass humour and a whole lot of situational absurdity. Starring professional wrestler-turnedactor John Cena (“Peacemaker”) in the titular role (kind of), the R-rated film takes a seemingly innocent childhood prank and places it square into the centre of adulthood.
But, in order to explain how Cena only “kind of” stars as Ricky, it is important to understand the plot.
According to Prime Video’s official synopsis for “Ricky Stanicky,” “when three childhood best friends pull a prank gone wrong, they invent the imaginary Ricky Stanicky to get them out of trouble! Twenty years after creating this ‘friend,’ [the trio] still use the nonexistent Ricky as a handy alibi for their immature behaviour.”
Unfortunately for carriedaway schemers Dean (Zac Efron, “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” 2019), J.T. (Andrew Santino, “The Disaster Artist,” 2017) and Wes (Jermaine Fowler, “Coming 2 America,” 2021), however, things get complicated when their families and significant others become suspicious of the mysterious Ricky and begin asking more pointed questions. When many of their loved ones demand to meet the infamous Ricky, the 30-something friends consider that it may be time to give up the ghost and come clean. But fearing a backlash that may cause them to lose everything from their families’ trust to their otherwise happy marriages, the trio comes up with a much zanier plan: hire someone to play the famous Ricky Stanicky.
Thus enters Cena as “raunchy celebrity impersonator ‘Rock Hard’ Rod,” hired by the men to bring life to the “friend” that has been getting them all out of boring outings, family obligations and work for the past 20 years. But nothing this tricky is made to last, and “when Rod takes his role of a lifetime too far, they begin to wish they’d never invented Ricky in the first place” (per Prime).
Based on an original story concept-turned-screenplay by David Occhino (“Movie 43,” 2013) and new talent Jason Decker, Santino’s fellow “Disaster Artist” co-star and Palto Alto Renaissance man James Franco was originally tapped to play Ricky during its early stages of development in 2010. As the film progressed (and spent a couple years on the Hollywood Black List of bestliked, unmade screenplays), Franco was removed from the project and other actors, including Jim Carrey (“Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” 1994) and Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker,” 2019), were considered for the role that ultimately went to Cena.
In September 2022, entertainment news site Deadline reported that “There’s Something About Mary” (1998) and “Greenbook” (2018) director Peter Farrelly was “in talks” with Efron and Cena regarding the film. The article, written by Mike Fleming Jr., also noted that “’Ricky Stanicky’ will be in the spirit of the raucous comedies he made with brother Bobby that include ‘Kingpin’ [1996], ‘There’s Something About Mary’, ‘Me, Myself & Irene’ [2000] and ‘Dumb and Dumber’ [1994].”
With Efron and Cena locked in as the film’s leads as of late 2022/early 2023, production on “Ricky Stanicky” finally began after more than 12 years in the discussion phase.