'Moving McAllister' aggressively unfunny
By Chris Hicks
Deseret Morning News
Published: February 8, 2008
"Moving McAllister" (Magnolia, 2007, PG-13, $26.9
. The most difficult thing to believe about this lame road comedy (partly filmed in Utah) is that it came from Andrew Black, the director of the Mormon adaptation of "Pride & Prejudice," which was one of the better LDS-oriented movies.
Screenwriter Ben Gourley stars as a law intern who sucks up to his rich, arrogant boss (Rutger Hauer, of all people) by taking a huge crate in a dilapidated rental truck crosscountry to Los Angeles, causing him to miss his bar exam.
Along for the ride are the boss' attractive-but-dippy niece (Mila Kunis, of "That '70s Show"), her flatulent pet pig, and at the film's 30-minute mark they also pick up an overly friendly, free-spirited hitchhiker (Jon Heder, "Napoleon Dynamite" himself).
There are lots of side-trip encounters with "wacky" characters, from hillbillies in a hot tub to Gourley's father, who thinks he's a superhero. There's vomiting, Heder (repeatedly) in his underwear, and occasionally Kunis slips Gourley some sleeping pills, which send him into odd-but-not-funny hallucinations. Gourley also occasionally speaks by phone with his overweight, sex-obsessed buddy (Hubbel Palmer).
"McAllister" is one of the worst locally made movies in some time — aggressively unfunny, replete with stupid stereotypes and desperate in its use of obnoxious bodily humor.
