“We’re The Millers,” released Aug. 19, was a different type of comedy. The movie tells the story of a drug dealer who needs to move a huge shipment of weed and creates a fake family to help him do so without looking suspicious. The movie was not completely sidesplitting, but, for the most part, it was consistently funny.

Jason Sudeikis (“Horrible Bosses”) plays a middle-aged drug dealer, David Clark. David lives in an apartment complex with stripper Rose O’Reilly, played by Jennifer Aniston (“Wanderlust”), and 18-year-old loser Kenny Rossmore, played by Will Poulter (“The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”). Emma Roberts (“Empire State”) plays homeless punk-rock girl Casey Mathis who hangs out by their building. David decides to create the typical American family with Rose, Kenny and Casey, so he rents an RV and goes across the country to get the shipment from Mexico and bring it into the U.S.

The connection that they all ultimately make is wonderful. They do not become a traditional American family, but they become their own little family.

One major plot hole is that the whereabouts of Casey and Kenny’s parents are unknown. Casey runs away from hers, but she becomes a Miller under the witness protection, so why does she not have to tell her parents? Kenny’s mom apparently went on vacation for a while without him, so did she just leave him there? Did she ever come back? It was nonsensical that these kids were able to just up and leave their lives without their parents knowing about it, and this was never explained in the movie.

Aniston and Sudeikis acted well together throughout the movie. It was obvious from the beginning that a relationship was going to develop between their characters. This was cliché, but it worked. The ending is a predictable development, but Aniston and Sudeikis made it as exciting as it could be given the situation.

Roberts stood out in a negative way in this movie. It is hard to not still see her as Addie Singer from the Nickelodeon show “Unfabulous.” She played Nancy Drew in the self-titled 2007 film “Nancy Drew” and has played some other characters since then as well, but she has never distinguished herself in any of them. Her acting in this movie was dull and unappealing. Her character was a hopeless runaway teen that the audience should have sympathized with, but likely did not feel any type of connection with her.

The director, Rawson Marshall Thurber, did a fairly good job on this movie, but when you compare it to “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story,” which he also directed, this movie just did not  measure up. Seeing it once was satisfying, but going to buy the DVD and watch it over and over again is unlikely.

This movie will provide laughter though most will not go out of their way to see it again, and it is a good movie to watch once with your friends.

Gabrielle Prusak
Contributing Writer
laker@oswegonian.com