You, Me and Dupree
Seth Rogen is a gas in “You, Me and Dupree,” but please, please don’t make the mistake of seeing the movie just for him. You might wonder, as I did, why he disappears for a good 45 minutes in the middle, and why directors Anthony and Joe Russo didn’t reward his brilliance by beefing up his part. Just trust me when I say Rogen is one of the brightest comic actors to emerge in a long time, and rent “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” In “You, Me and Dupree,” he’s playing a stock figure – a whipped husband – but he invigorates it with abject fear of his wife’s wrath and boyish glee when he gets to do what he wants. When he shifts from one extreme to the other, it’s uproarious.
If the Russo brothers were too slow-footed to appreciate Rogen, it stands to reason they’d be tone-deaf to everything going on in the movie. “You, Me and Dupree” stars Owen Wilson as an underemployed, loutish but sensitive buddy who moves in with newlyweds Matt Dillon and Kate Hudson. A series of undercooked set pieces ensues. The movie is haphazard, sloppily written and visually dull. Dillon has a few amusingly blunt moments when Wilson pushes his buttons, while Hudson does little but prance around in underwear and bikinis. As Hudson’s father, Michael Douglas appears to be attempting a limp parody of his robber-baron “Wall Street” persona. I won’t say he’s unfunny, but he makes De Niro’s recent phoned-in comedy look Belushi-esque. “You, Me and Dupree” flops and stinks like a dying fish on a hot day.
LISTEN: You, Me and Dupree