Film Reviews 2017

Snatched - Release Date: 19th May - 2/10

The film begins promisingly enough with oblivious, day-dreamer Emily (Amy Schumer) waltzing around a clothes shop talking to a woman about her life. It's soon discovered in amusing fashion that the woman is infact a customer and Emily should be working. After promptly being fired for being a terrible employee, Emily's boyfriend breaks up with her as well right before their getaway to Ecuador and so, with two non-refundable tickets, she begrudgingly takes her Mother along because no one else will go with her.

Its a simple story and to an extent it sets the film up nicely for what should be a decent comedy. The tightly woven beginning is arguably the funniest part of the film and there are some good laughs in there told with flair and confidence. Like a stand-up comedian losing their audience though, the harder it tries to make you laugh, the more cringe-inducing and dire it becomes. The film spirals out of control in a drab of awkward, inappropriate jokes. Someone should tell Schumer that trying to make a joke about cleaning private parts is about as funny as the holocaust. (It's not funny)

The other glaring problem with this film is its characters. Whilst Schumer's over the top mannerisms do a good job of hiding the character flaws, its hard to overlook that her character just isn't a very likable person. She's lazy so she gets fired – we understand this and actually empathise with the store clerk because, well, she is. Her ex boyfriend leaves her because she's holding him back from greatness, partly due to the fact she drinks too much booze but also because she's now jobless and he may well perceive its unlikely she'll try and get another one. Again, these are things we actually relate to. There's no animosity there and for moments that we should side with Emily on, we don't.

It also doesn't help that there's a lack of chemistry with her over-protective, cat-loving Mother Linda (Goldie Hawn) and what ensues is two characters stumbling around Ecuador trying to make jokes amidst a crisis whom we should care about but just...don't. The script feels rushed, and it could have done with several more rewrites to get right because somewhere in this film there's a good comedy but it just isn't there right now.

As I mentioned before, the laughs grow thin as the film goes on and funnily enough the best moments actually don't come from either of the two leads they come from the supporting cast who have good timing and flair with their jokes – something that's unfortunately lacking from both of the two leads.

Unfortunately what we end up with is a thinly veiled comedy with inappropriate jokes that never hit, some clever quips that do and a script that feels snatched before its finished to rush this into production. With some more love and attention and a better written script maybe this film could have been better but right now its simply not worth spending the money to watch.

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