An American Pickle (2020)

Seth Rogan makes a lot of movies. Some good. Some not so much. An American Pickle feels more like a high concept that was fun to make up than a story truly worth telling in an actual motion picture. It's like some very funny people (Rogan and Rich) started riffing on a funny idea they had and then carried it all the way through to making it into a movie. But having seen the movie, one wonders if it was all worth it.

Even the jokes feel like that. They'll hit on something (early on there is a scene involving seltzer) and just keep going with it, long past it being that funny. So you start to smile a bit (few of the jokes illicit more than a smile) but then it drags on and you just wait for something else to come along which might be funny.

The humour probably works for others more than it did for me. It's mostly based on absurdist ideas, the whole thing is ridiculous actually, I get that's the point, and that's just something that doesn't work for me as much as it does for others. Still, I imagine the film's approach to just dragging things out will get tiring for even those who get a kick out of the preposterous.

On the plus side, Rogan is charming playing both the modern man and his great grandfather and if there is any enjoyment to be had it's in watching him clearly have a good time. But even he gets tired a bit. His historical character's accent is over the top and trying after a while.

This is one of those ideas that might have made a really fun SNL sketch, but stretched over (not quite even) 90 minutes it runs out of flavour fast.

An American Pickle
Starring: Seth Rogan, Sarah Snook, Jorma Taccone, Sean Whalen
Director: Brandon Trost
Writers: Simon Rich