Bad boy bad boy

Bad Neighbours

Director: Nicholas Stoller

Writers: Andrew J. Cohen, Brendan O’Brien

Starring: Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Zac Efron, Dave Franco

Runtime: 96 minutes

Certification: 15

Rating: 4/5

It’s comedy season again, and things are kicking off in the most family-unfriendly way possible (in both a literal ‘this is a crude comedy’ and ‘this is a comedy where unfriendly acts are committed against a family’ sense) with this new Seth Rogen vehicle, also featuring Zac Efron continuing to embrace his post-High School Musical role as a comic actor (17 Again, all those years ago, seems to have just been the start).

It quickly becomes apparent, however, that despite what the poster may claim, this is a film featuring far more than just Rogen and Efron, despite both being on top form – Rogen plays against type to a degree, as the beleaguered new father (albeit a new father who remains somewhat of an overgrown man-child), while Efron embraces the ability to simultaneously have a ball re-starting his career on what would appear to be his own terms while poking fun at as many aspects of his past as he can.

Alongside Rogen as the other half of the family is Rose Byrne, who successfully matches him beat-for-beat, mixing it up nicely between panicky new mother and a brilliantly manipulative vixen, while Efron is accompanied by Dave Franco, who makes it two out of two for putting in solid appearences in great comedies (the first being, of course, the impeccable 21 Jump Street).

It’s certainly a strong central cast, but it gets even better when the view widens to the surroundings – Craig Roberts puts in another stellar, if depressingly small, turn, while several well-known faces from the lands of TV comedies making appearences throughout (most notably in the form of historical flashbacks to the invention of various university traditions).

All this combined with some fantastic setups for ridiculous scenarios (although what’s weird is the fact that _Monsters Uni _managed to successfully lampoon more college/uni stereotypes) makes for a comedy that proves more hit than miss – even the weaker scenes are fairly smirk worthy, and the fact the film successfully dodges most of the jokes from the trailers leaves almost all the punchlines a (hilarious) surprise.

Sure, events are a little contrived – the story runs out of steam about halfway through with what looks to be an early resolution, and needs a bit of a logic leap combined with a sudden change in character motivation (that makes a kind of sense in terms of Rogen as man-child, but not in the context of the story) to get things going again. The epilogue scene feels equally contrived – it’s funny, and almost touching in its own way, but it feels shoe-horned in to give the characters a better degree of closure that doesn’t really feel deserved.

There are few other flaws that immediately leap out with Bad Neighbours. The directing is sound, the music choices logical, and everything mostly makes sense. The story failures aren’t forgivable in the story-telling 101 stakes, but they are in terms of how damaging they prove to the overall comedy – which is to say, not at all. The film remains hilarious on the whole, and the strong cast gives it their all to make it so, although I’m not sure if it’s a compliment or a criticism to say the baby (or rather, babies, with twins playing the same girl) threatens to steal the entire show with the quality of her acting.