If you are familiar with the Broken Lizard boys you don’t need to read this review. If you love their work just stop now and see this film. If you don’t like their work you can move on as well and forget this film ever existed. I, however, am a middle of the road Broken Lizard fan, but I am definitely against the grain. I don’t like Super Troopers whatsoever, Club Dread was an improvement, but that’s not saying a lot, but I did enjoy Beerfest. So, it was with little to no expectation that I watched their latest effort, Slammin’ Salmon, and while this is no comedic gem I have to admit I had a few laughs and was never entirely turned off.
We aren’t talking high concept here and in fact we are looking at a film that probably plucked its plot decisions out of a hat in some sort of crazy “Choose Your Own Adventure” kind of a way. Michael Clark Duncan stars as the film’s title character, a former Heavyweight Champion boxer now running an upper-class Miami seafood restaurant bearing his moniker “Slammin’ Salmon.”
Using his past profession to the plot’s advantage, the champ isn’t the brightest bulb in the box and finds himself saddled with a gambling debt owed to the Yakuza, which he bullies his restaurant staff into helping him cover. Establishing a contest and threatening them with physical violence, the staff of Slammin’ Salmon must raise $20,000 before the night is over or there’s going to be hell to pay.
The highest praise I can pay this film is to say it doesn’t fall into the highly over-the-top antics of previous Lizard films. However, this film does include stereotypical poop jokes with a “swallowed the engagement ring in the desert” joke you can see coming from a mile away, but for some reason none of it bored or bothered me. And like I said, I actually laughed a couple of times.
Jay Chandrasekhar runs around acting foolish with his ass hanging out, April Bowlby’s face gets burned with scalding soup before she starts on fire (literally) and Kevin Heffernan, on top of directing, plays the restaurant’s manager and the man that swallows the earlier mentioned engagement ring. Duncan does well in delivering several eff-bombs that for some reason or another made me laugh, and a there’s a group of guest appearances by SNL’s Will Forte, “Heroes” star Sendhil Ramamurthy, G4’s Olivia Munn, comedian Jim Gaffigan, C-lister Vivica A. Fox and Morgan Fairchild.
Perhaps the most shocking performance in the whole film, though, came from Lance Henriksen. Despite recognizing his face, I didn’t figure out it was him until watching the credits. I knew I recognized him, but couldn’t place him and it’s a performance that actually shows he still has some good work left in him. I know that sounds weird considering this is nothing more than a foul-mouthed juvenile comedy, but I think there is something to take notice of there.
Overall, I can’t give this film anything more than passing praise but I can say Broken Lizard fans will enjoy it and even those not particularly impressed by the troupe should be able to have a little fun with Slammin’ Salmon as it is definitely better than Super Troopers and Club Dread, but like I said, I’m not your typical Broken Lizard follower. Make of that what you will, but “rent it” is my final recommendation.
