Pages - Menu

Saturday, November 27, 2010

The Slammin' Salmon (Broken Lizard)

"The Champ is going to kill me. There's no way I can get out of last place."
"Donnie, he's not going to kill you."
"Didn't you hear? Last place is a broken rib sandwich!"
"Well, you see? Breaking your ribs won't kill you."

The Slammin' Salmon restaurant is owned by heaveyweight champion Cleon "Slammin" Salmon (Clarke).  His employees live in fear... especially the wait staff who call him "The Champ".  When the Champ needs to raise $20,000 by the end of the evening to pay a Japanese businessman.  To reach the goal, he puts the wait staff in competition.  The waiter with the most tips will win $10,000 in cash and the loser with receive a "broken rib sandwich" compliments of the Champ.

The scores are tallied by mousy manager Rich Parente (Heffernan), who will get punched if they don't reach $20,000.  The competitors are...

-Nuts (Chandrasekhar), the awkward waiter who is medicated to keep his alter ego Zongo under control
-Connor (Lemme), the actor who was recently fired from the popular TV show CFI: Hotlanta
-Guy (Stolhanske) the tanned narcissistic ladies man
-Mia (Bowlby), the pretty ballerina who uses her looks to get bigger tips
-Tara (Smulders), who has the job to pay for Medical School
-And the new guy, Donnie (Soter) got the job because his brother Dave (also Soter) is the head chef.  It's Donnie's first day, and he gets promoted from bus boy to waiter to compete with the rest of the wait staff

Will they make enough money, and who will get knocked out by the Champ?


This is Broken Lizard going mainstream... or at least trying.  It has the same feel as their previous films (Puddle Cruiser, Super Troopers, Club Dread and Beerfest), but lacks the raw, unbridled quality.  There is minimal nudity and no gratuitous female nudity...which is a good thing, all the nudity is annoying in other films.

There are more well-known actors and actresses popping up in brief cameos, and regulars returning to create quirky minor characters.  These additional characters work, but many are drawn out too long... such as the sequence with Sendhill Ramamurthy, which is drawn out much longer than necessary.  The female characters don't get to do much, and serve as romantic interests to the Lizards.  The main bright spot in the film is Michael Duncan Clarke as The Champ.  He has a catch phrase, which I won't post here, and other hilarious lines / moments.  He alone can't save the film, but he puts up a good fight.

Not a knockout, but not the worst in the Broken Lizard arsenal (that would be Puddle Cruiser... blah). 

The Slammin' Salmon (2009) 90 minutes
Rating: R for pervasive language and sexual references
Director: Kevin Heffernan
Starring: Jay Chandrasekhar as Nuts
Kevin Heffernan as Rich Parente
Steve Lemme as Connor
Paul Soter as Dave / Donnie
Erik Stolhanske as Guy
Michael Duncan Clarke as Cleon Salmon
Cobie Smulders as Tara
April Bowlby as Mia

No comments:

Post a Comment