Amy Schumer is one of those people that can polarize a room. A long time stand-up comedienne who has a history of not exactly having the cleanest material around, some of the issues she takes on have the quality of a bull in a china shop and is truly not for the overly sensitive. Two years ago, she starred in the sleeper hit “Trainwreck,” and adding that to her immensely popular “Inside Amy Schumer,” she has become a very hot commodity in Hollywood. So much so that she has teamed up with legend Goldie Hawn to star in “Snatched,” directed by “The Night Before” and “Warm Bodies” helmer Jonathan Levine.
Schumer plays Emily Middleton, a twenty-something that really has no direction and has recently been dumped by her boyfriend in New York City. In seeking solace from her mother, Linda (Hawn), she decides to take her along for an already-paid-for trip to Ecuador that she was supposed to take with her boyfriend. While there, Emily meets up with a man (Tom Bateman), who ends up taking them on a day trip where they are kidnapped and held for ransom. The ladies then must race against time and danger to try to get to an American Embassy before their captors catch them again first.
Although very funny and definitely not for the whole family, this is a longer-than-it-has-to-be ninety minutes. It seems like “The Heat” scribe Kate Dippold was not sure how complex she wanted her story to be, and in doing so really drug out the plot in places where it did not need to run that slow. Instead of a way-too-long scene where Emily is convincing her mother to come along on the vacation, perhaps more time could have been spent on the section where the pair is trying to get to the embassy under the leadership of a local American guide named Roger (the great Christopher Meloni), which provided some wonderful comedic moments to a script that already had me laughing out loud in more than one place.
I am also not afraid to admit that Goldie Hawn had kind of fallen off of my radar for the last several years, so I had forgotten how great her comedic timing was. She and Schumer work very well together not only for the jaw dropping and hilarious moments but also for the mother/daughter relationship that is just enough there to be solid but not so overly syrupy to take away from what this film is supposed to be: a comedy of the highest order. And it is that first and foremost, fueled even further by a couple of ladies they become friends with at the resort in Barb and Ruth (Joan Cusack and Wanda Sykes, respectively). There is an action element, but the filmmakers make a conscious effort to have that take a backseat to its two leads simply doing what they do best. Add to that another hilarious turn by Ike Barinholtz as Emily’s off-kilter brother, Jeffrey, and the funny is in no way lacking.
Overall, “Snatched” is a fun film that I am not sure needs to be rushed out and seen, but if you need a film that you can just laugh with and let your cares worry about themselves for a while, put this one on your agenda. And before you ask: no, there is no cameo by Liam Neeson.