Film Review: Hot Rod

Liverpool Daily Post

Andy Samberg as Rod Kimble in the comedy film, Hot Rod _320

Hot Rod (Cert. 12A, 88 mins),
Stars: Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, Bill Hader, Danny R. McBride, Isla Fisher, Sissy Spacek
Directed by Akiva Schaffer

THERE is something oddly sweet and charming about Hot Rod, a hare-brained comedy pitched somewhere between Talladega Nights and Napoleon Dynamite, that welcomes Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg to the big screen.

Self-professed stuntman Rod Kimble (Samberg) has plenty of enthusiasm, but his attempts to fly through the air on his moped usually end in disaster.

He is desperate to screech in the tyre-tracks of his dead biological father, the test-rider for Evel Knievel, who perished in a blaze of glory well before his time. Instead, Rod has to suffer constant beatings at the hands of his bullying stepfather Frank (Ian McShane) and the disdain of his weedy stepbrother, Kevin.

Only his mother, Marie (Sissy Spacek), inspires him to greatness, en- couraging him to chase his dream. When Frank falls ill and the family needs $50,000 for a heart transplant, Rod pledges to jump 15 buses – one more than his idol – to raise the cash.

Hot Rod starts slowly, taking a good 30 minutes to find some tread, but once the eponymous daredevil begins his quest we’re rooting for the misfit to defy the odds (and gravity) and leap to glory.

Samberg, with perfect girl next door Denise (Isla Fisher) makes an appealing leading man, with bountiful charm and good looks that he keeps concealed behind his hapless hero’s fake facial hair.

Rod’s attempt to jump the school buses provides a grandstand finale.