Green Book filmmaker Peter Farrelly continues on his solo directing spree following a Coen Brothers-like split from his filmmaking partner and brother Bobby nearly a decade ago. In their separate endeavors, the brothers who brought us such enduring classics as There’s Something About Mary and Hall Pass (sincere) have continued to pursue comedy to mixed results. Bobby Farrelly’s good-natured if not particularly laugh-out-loud Champions of just a year ago, and Peter’s The Greatest Beer Run Ever from two years ago, which was received poorly and quickly memory-holed after debuting on Apple TV+. Still calmly charting the comedy waters alone and curiously not intent to pursue more Oscar-winning social commentary, Peter reunites with Beer Run star Zac Efron for Ricky Stanicky, a humble, mid-budget studio comedy. It’s under two hours, with a lot of really funny jokes that actually made me laugh. Are mid-budget studio comedies that make people laugh, true unicorns in the cinematic landscape of 2024, truly enjoying a belabored if much-desired return?
Well, if Ricky Stanicky has anything to do with it, likely not: Distributed by Amazon MGM Studios via Amazon Prime, Ricky Stanicky, which would probably do well in a crowd (as it did at the world premiere I attended in Times Square on Tuesday night) will not be granted any theatrical release. Instead, the film falls into its box on the streaming carousel like a dead body ushered into its coffin and lowered six feet down into the earth.
The ever-eager John Cena stars as Rock Hard Rod, the stage name for an X-rated cover artist who turns pop rock classics into odes about masturbation. Rod is plucked from an Atlantic City casino following one night meeting lifelong friends Dean (Zac Efron), JT (Andrew Santino), and Wes (Jermaine Fowler). After returning from their duplicitous trip to the sudden birth of JT’s baby, the trio needs to enlist the help of an actor to play the fake friend who’s been getting them out of unwanted situations their entire lives—and got them to a last-minute concert in Atlantic City instead of JT’s baby shower. You see, “Ricky Stanicky” is only a real person to those Dean, JT and Wes needed to deceive over the past 20 years; he’s a “get out of jail free” card in the form of an unseen, hard-working humanitarian who’s been afflicted with cancer multiple times.
Though the men manage a vague Instagram page for Ricky that seems to have everyone fooled, it’s when JT misses the birth of his child that the claws start tightening on the guys. Unless Ricky Stanicky can make an appearance at JT’s new child’s upcoming bris, the jig will finally be up.
But the friends are not willing to let go of their façade just yet, and with the memory of the strange, muscular man who attempted to mooch off them at the casino bar, Dean calls Rod up with a real part for him to play. Nervous as to whether this unstable deadbeat—who’s suffering physically from alcohol withdrawal before their very eyes—will even be up to the task of embodying an alternate persona, Rod exceeds all expectations as Ricky, which is where most of the humor in Ricky Stanicky comes from.
Ricky Stanicky was always the guy who could do it all—at least, for Wes, Dean and JT. But now Rod’s version of Ricky really can do it all, and to comedic effect. As Ricky Stanicky, Rod is near-infallible to every inquiring person he comes across at the bris, thanks in part to Rod’s studious scrutiny of the guys’ “Ricky Stanicky Bible,” amassed with decades’ worth of character development for Ricky. For as much of a lowlife as Rod is, he’s an incredibly hard worker and unwilling to put forth the bare minimum. Case in point: When the mohel (Jeff Ross) gets accidentally drugged on ketamine, Rod steps in with Ricky’s “experience doing adult circumcisions in Africa.”
But Rod’s enthusiasm for his new character steps over the line in the wake of the successful bris showing, and it’s a race against time to get Ricky and Rod out of their lives for good. The only problem is that Rod, as Ricky, seems incapable of anything other than failing upwards. Rod’s charisma is convincing to the point of pure absurdity, and just how far it’s able to take him as he drags the other three men down (and he soars ever upwards) seems like an impossible ceiling to hit.
Cena’s own charisma takes the part of Rod above and beyond. Absolutely no one in this film is as funny as John Cena, an actor I’m somewhat allergic to despite a recent popular embrace as he’s made the jump from wrestling to acting over the past decade or so. Cena’s performances are affable but reek of a desperation to be liked, to be seen as good and funny; his expressive face contorts itself to lengths it wouldn’t otherwise need to go to if it wasn’t so intent on impressing us. As Rod, however, I found Cena’s annoyingly palpable eagerness To Be An Actor and Be Funny much more suited to the performance of a pathetic, aspiring performer who is desperate for a better life. A character who is overly hungry for approval and acceptance, Rock Hard Rod couldn’t be a better fit—and the sight of his giant body in a little t-shirt that just reads “I don’t trust soup” is objectively amusing.
Second to Cena is William H. Macy’s small yet meaty role as Dean and JT’s boss, who gets roped into a hilarious scenario involving the phallic way he asserts himself when speaking in front of a crowd. On the other hand, Efron, who has been getting a lot of “Oscar snub” assertions after his gut-wrenching performance in The Iron Claw, offers a comedic performance as similarly muted as those from Santino and Fowler. Maybe it’s that the three lack chemistry (I found neither Santino or Fowler to be funny at all), or maybe it’s just that the bulk of the jokes are written for Cena. But nevertheless, I found Ricky Stanicky to be a pretty good time; probably the most I’ve laughed during a recent, true-blue, R-rated comedy film since…umm…does Jackass Forever count?
It’s not a great film by any means (I’m mixed-positive on Farrelly comedies, generally), but Ricky Stanicky does succeed in fashioning a fairly consistent number of gags that got a rise out of me even if the narrative, especially as it careens into the third act, feels like a one-note joke that’s getting stretched a little too far. The script’s odd pacing turns the bris into approximately one-third of the movie—and I’m not being hyperbolic—while the rest of the film seems to take place in maybe four locations max. One has to assume that has at least a little to do with the fact that the film was, for some reason, shot in Australia as opposed to New England, the Farrelly Brothers’ typical filmmaking haunt.
Maybe more than other genres (although I think that all films should be forced to debut in theaters as opposed to streaming), it’s particularly discouraging when a comedy is forced to come into this world like a beautiful newborn child and then be immediately sent to its death on streaming. Perhaps Ricky Stanicky won’t be a critical darling, but I can’t imagine that this film wouldn’t be shared in uproarious exaltation by a general audience. Blockbusters have killed the mid-budget film, and now mid-budget films (Ricky Stanicky cost $80 million) are pushed onto streaming as if to only shove the skewer in deeper. Ricky Stanicky might look like it was shot to be a TV commercial, but it was meant to be guffawed at in a suburban AMC with 50 other people on a Thursday night. Instead, you’ll only get to chuckle quietly to yourself in your living room, or slightly louder if joined by one or two friends. I can’t help but think that not only are we killing the arts industry on streaming, but we’re killing the human experience. What is living if not howling at a former professional wrestler in an ill-fitting costume singing cover songs about cum splooge alongside your fellow man? I don’t want to live in a world without it.
Director: Peter Farrelly
Writer: Jeffrey Bushell, Brian Jarvis, James Lee Freeman, Peter Farrelly, Pete Jones, Mike Cerrone
Starring: Zac Efron, John Cena, Jermaine Fowler, Andrew Santino, Lex Scott Davis, William H. Macy
Release Date: March 7, 2024 (Amazon)
Brianna Zigler is an entertainment writer based in middle-of-nowhere Massachusetts. Her work has appeared at Little White Lies, Film School Rejects, Thrillist, Bright Wall/Dark Room and more, and she writes a bi-monthly newsletter called That’s Weird. You can follow her on Twitter, where she likes to engage in stimulating discussions on films like Movie 43, Clifford, and Watchmen.