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Created Aug 11, 2013 09:06PM PST • Edited Sep 30, 2019 12:48AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   One enters We’re The Millers expecting to laugh. That happens, but first a bit about the movie’s subject.

   The title doesn’t lie. This is not a movie about smuggling or pot, though pot smuggling drives the plot. It’s about family, family values even. Well, anti-family-values to be accurate, but family nonetheless. Four outcasts must join up into the ultimate inclusive unit, the building-block of society … a family.

   Two don’t care about others, two are victims, two adults, two kids: lots of comedic possibilities.

   About those laughs, my late show at Santana Row LOLed through the first two reels and left satisfied in the end. The LOLing wasn’t consistent however. I found the movie 20% LOL. Others laughed more, especially the gals, that mama down front most of all. So someone was pretty much always laughing.

   Not to lie, I did laugh my ass off. Regularly. Never more so than during the One Huge Ball scene, when a tarantula crawls up some dude’s shorts and bites him … you know where. Swelled up real big. And they showed it, unlike in the censored video nearby. I about pissed my pants. Know what I’m saying…

   The performances are hit or miss and the whole thing peters out in the end. Plus it’s sociopathic, cheerfully so but sociopathic nonetheless. Hence the modified limited hangout of grading it 3.5 out of 5. While Very Good ain’t chopped liver, it doesn’t place the Millers on Wick’s 2013 Great Movies list.

   Not to worry…

   We’re the Millers easily offers enough LOLs to qualify as a sure-thing fun time at the theater, including one of the best gags in ages. At home, months from now? Maybe not, unless you’re surrounded by girls.

   Home or away, stick around for the ending outtakes. The last one’s really cute.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Jennifer Aniston & Jason Sudeikis are reliably watchable and plenty funny. While not the breakthrough performance for either that Horrible Bosses was for each, they still bring home the bacon.

   Starting with America’s Sweetheart, a raunchfest like We’re the Millers is now par for the course for Jennifer Aniston. She’s mastered the art of cheerfully letting her freak flag fly. See her in last year’s Wanderlust for another recent example. The scene most people are talking about and that’s all over the web is her impressive striptease, which is doubly impressive for a 40-something. Let’s just say that parts that are supposed to be hard are hard, while parts that are supposed to jiggle, jiggle.

   Jason Sudeikis isn’t nearly as funny as he’s been before, but is more than funny enough and sufficiently watchable also, given that he’s onscreen most of the movie.

   Will Poulter’s awkward teen takes a while to warm up, but becomes quite appealing over the course of the movie. He has two breakout scenes: singing TLC’s Waterfalls and the One Huge Ball gag. The latter? Instantly legendary.

   Emma Roberts barely registers as a street grrl who becomes the sweet girl in the family.

   Supporters:

   • Ed Helms is miscast as a bigtime drug dealer.
   • Nick Offerman & Kathryn Hahn are plenty funny as an RVing couple with some strange inclinations. Molly Quinn is lovely as their sweet-16 daughter.
   • Tomer Sisley is nails as a Mexican drug kingpin, as is Matthew Willig as his huge henchman. How huge is Willig? An NFL OT for 14 years, he won a Super Bowl with the Rams. That huge.
   • Luis Guzmán cameos as a corrupt Mexican Cop. Is there any other kind in the movies?
   • Mark L. Young is perfect as a hot-looking carney dude. Know what I’m saying?
   • Ken Marino is fine as a Strip Club Owner. Dual threat Marino also wrote Aniston’s Horrible Bosses and Wanderlust.
   • Laura-Leigh charms as a dimwitted stripper.
   • Rawson Marshall Thurber as the Ultimate Border Guard. Thurber is also the movie’s Director.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    Rawson Marshall Thurber and his four screenwriters deserve another at-bat after delivering such a funny film. In particular, the One Huge Ball gag goes straight into the RaunchCom Hall of Fame.

    Their idea to use weed smuggling as the MacGuffin worked very well, allowing the protagonist to be a mild guy drawn into deeply unsavory business.

    They also deftly juxtapose the antisocial and even sociopathic behaviors of the four outcasts with the norms of family life. Let’s not commit sociology here, but this proves a rich vein of comedic possibility, while also sticking a finger in the eye of the Family Values crowd. That last earns bonus points in the Lefty precinct of Hollywood.

11. Direction Good 3.0

12. Play Very Good 3.5

13. Music Good 3.0

14. Visuals Good 3.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.5

    No drug use or even drinking occurs in this movie, nor is there any sex. The only nudity is a prosthetically enhanced set of male privates that features a grotesquely swollen testicle.

    What makes it Hard R then? Sheer nastiness. While the “Dad” and “Son” aren’t outwardly rude, they get goaded into deeply inappropriate utterances. However, the others in the “family” are flat-out crude, rude and socially unacceptable, as we used to say back in the day. They’re a constant affront to polite society, popping off in vile language, describing sexual acts only a porn director could imagine and so on.

17. Sex Titillating 1.9

18. Violence Fierce 2.0

19. Rudeness Nasty 3.7

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.4

    We’re the Millers is an ultimate Hollywood F.U. to the family values crowd. I straddle that line, a family-man who loves to LOL. Others are guaranteed to be offended, while much of the movie’s target audience barely understands what’s being satired. I sympathize with the former and pity the latter.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.8

23. Biological Surreal 3.0

24. Physical Glib 1.3