Ricky Stanicky playfully letting John Cena flex his comedy muscles, “Ricky Stanicky” works from an amusing premise that owes an unlikely debt to a 51-year-old “MASH” episode, in which an imaginary character must be brought to life. Also serving as a reunion of Zac Efron and director Peter Farrelly, the execution yields an only fitfully funny R-rated comedy, a genre that’s found a receptive platform via Amazon.
Like seemingly all friendship-based comedies, this one begins with a flashback, as a trio of boys get into trouble and desperately blame what happened on “Ricky Stanicky,” a made-up kid.
Cut to the present, and Dean and his buddies JT and Wes are still dropping “Stanicky” – rather as Hawkeye in “MASH” might have referred to “Captain Tuttle” – when they feel like skipping a guys weekend or any given situation, such as a baby shower. Taking the ploy somewhat to heart, they smirk between themselves and drink to Stanicky as “The best friend we never had”.
Actually, their latest juvenile prank gets them to Atlantic City, where they come by an unusual lounge-entertainer sort who passes for “Rock Hard” Rod. Follows by the time, so to speak, “the chickens come home to roost”, and in order to escape, Dean comes up with a brilliant idea involving hiring Rock to play Stanicky who attended a bris, a Jewish feast in honor of JT’s newly born babe. Unsurprisingly, the film persists in below-the-waist direction sandwiching a cot joke between two identical penile jokes provoking Rod to boast and swagger from all the remarkable properties Dean and John note old Dave has possessed during all the years.
Ricky Stanicky
Not that it matters. Although Rod has dutifully studied the “bible” they’ve assembled, that sets up plenty of highly awkward moments to keep misleading both their romantic partners and Dean and JT’s boss , getting into the silly spirit . No one ever stops to question this curious dynamic, which generally promises — especially for the actors involved — far more than it delivers. After winning a much-debated Oscar with “Green Book,” Farrelly collaborated with Efron on another streaming movie, 2022’s “The Greatest Beer Run Ever.” “Ricky Stanicky” shifts closer to the sort of raunchy comedic fare for which Farrelly was known when working with brother Bobby on movies like “There’s Something About Mary.”
Typically, a six-writer screenplay credit is not a good sign, at least not one that guarantees the movie’s quality – and this is certainly the case with Last Resort; it also looks like the writer-room-feel-in-finished-product syndrome also contributes to this impression. Still, it has its moments – a few are even good, but the too-dark, too-serious expose of Dean’s past sometimes touches the unbearable in the context of this script.
Edgier comedies have found the theatrical distribution even tougher than usual nowadays , but, with the exception of Anyone But You, all of the titles mentioned above came out through Amazon.
Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cena has smartly played to his tough-guy body to move into broad comedy, from the DC series “Peacemaker” to “Blockers,” “Trainwreck,” and “Playing with Fire.” An imaginary friend who falls short of his made-up hype, “Ricky Stanicky” registers, minimally and certified fresh, as locked in that bin of the wrestler turned actor’s movies.