WE’RE THE MILLERS is the story of David Burke (Jason Sudeikis), a low-status weed dealer, who find himself owing money to his supplier (Ed Helms). Helms insists he smuggles a ‘smidge’ of marijuana back across the border with Mexico. David realizes that a single man driving a van appears suspicious, whereas a vacationing family in a motorhome will go right under the radar, as it were.
So David pays his two of his neighbours, stripper Rose (Jennifer Anniston) and teenage weirdo Kenny (Will Poulter) to play his wife and his son. The phony family is rounded out with a local homeless girl Casey (Emma Roberts).
Cue a myriad of situational road movie gags occurring to a group of strangers forced to pretend to know each other intimately. Along the way, they run into a range of oddballs including an ethically lax motorcycle cop played by Luis Guzman and a swinging couple played by Kathryn Hahn and Nick Offerman. A number of accidents occur and this further puts pressure on the pseudo family who has discovered that the smidge marijuana is, in fact, two metric tonnes of the stuff. As incident piles onto incident, the Millers feel tenser by the moment. Will David’s plan come unstuck?
WE’RE THE MILLERS is not for those who avoid profanity and vulgarity. It has plenty of these. However, if you enjoyed HORRIBLE BOSSES (also with Sudeikis) there’s a pretty good chance that this comedy will float your boat.
Sudeikis is as reliable as ever. There’s been some criticism of Aniston’s performance on line, but I disagree. I prefer the comedic attack she shows here versus the innocuousness of her rom-com roles. However, Will Poulter as Kenny is the stand out performance here. English actor Poulter, who is probably best known as Eustace in VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER, has kicked his career into a higher gear with this film.
WE’RE THE MILLERS breaks no new ground, but is the funniest big studio comedy in a season that has brought us such fare as GROWN UPS 2. It runs for 110 minutes. I rated it a 6/10
