Emily (Amy Schumer) just wants to get away from her humdrum life and take a vacation to Ecuador. Unfortunately, her boyfriend just dumped her and no one else wants to go with her. So, she convinces her safety-obsessed mom Linda (Goldie Hawn) to go with her. Things seem okay at first until the pair get kidnapped and have to fight their way back home…
The Goldie Hawn Show
A lot of people will be excited for Snatched because of lead actress Amy Schumer. She’s a high-profile comedian and a trailblazer when it comes to representing women in comedy. Schumer is not why Snatched works. She’s not bad – nor is anyone in the cast – but she’s not doing much to differentiate herself from her usual schtick. If you like that, you’ll probably enjoy her in Snatched. But it’s Goldie Hawn who brings the thunder.
A lot of the film’s humor is usually so in-your-face that you get blinded by it. Hawn is a comedy pro who knows how to ground her character in any moment no matter how outlandish it gets. She doesn’t have to resort to anything aggressively crude or flagrantly stupid to get a laugh. She plays each scene appropriately and finds character-based hilarity in the midst of some weaker comedy setups. The film is lucky to have her on board because she elevates nearly every scene she’s in.
Aside from that….
Nothing Wrong with “Just Fine”
The movie is an exercise in adequacy. There is so much in the film that coasts by on being acceptable but never extraordinary. The plot is fine. The gags are mostly fine. It makes for a difficult review because this kind of film is so assembly line that there isn’t much else to really talk about. It ends up being a detriment to the film since a lot of jokes are telegraphed way in advance. You’ll be able to see the punchline coming from a mile away. It doesn’t help that Snatched can’t quite settle on what kind of a comedy it wants to be. It runs the gamut from actually believable to absolutely inconceivable.
What really hurts the film is the lack of a fun or exciting resolution. The movie just kind of… ends. It feels like there might have been some reshoots or a change made for either budgetary or scheduling reasons. The movie leaves you in a fairly deflated state. If the ending had any kind of punch, it might have worked.
Is Snatched Good?
But even with these faults, Snatched ends up being perfectly okay. It will get the job done if all you want are some uncomplicated chuckles. The plot is underserviced and there isn’t anything that makes the movie special, but it satisfies in the most basic of ways. If it had a consistency of tone and a better script, it could have been something special. But, it really is worth it to see Goldie Hawn be funny again.
Snatched opens on May 12 in the US and May 19 in the UK.
