I knew nothing of Ricky Stanicky going into it. Browsing through my watchlist, there was nothing I fancied. Then this popped up, and I had 2 hours to kill. The cast was pretty good, Zac Efron, John Cena, Andrew Santino, Lex Scott Davis, Jermaine Fowler, and William H Macy. I have time for Efron, he was amazing in Iron Claw and he seems like a decent guy in real life.
The movie is directed by Peter Farrelly, of Dumb & Dumber, Kingpin, and There’s Something About Mary fame.
The Story
The story for Ricky Stanicky is:
When three childhood best friends pull a prank that goes wrong, they invent the imaginary Ricky Stanicky to get them out of trouble. Twenty years later, they still use the non-existent Ricky as a handy alibi for their immature behavior.
It sounded OK, and it seemed fairly original. We open in the 1980s, where three young lads are about to prank someone on Halloween. They end up setting fire to the person’s house and, as they are about to run off, leave a clue. The clue is one of their jackets, with the made-up name written on it, Ricky Stanicky.
Cut to the modern day and the guys Dean (Efron), JT (Santino), and Wes (Fowler) are preparing for JT’s baby shower with their wives. Dean’s phone goes and it’s Ricky, he’s going to have surgery and needs his friends there.
The guys rush off and we find they had tickets to a concert in Atlantic City. Imaginary Ricky has saved the day, again, and the guys can have a chill weekend. While there, they run into Rod Rimstead (Cena), who sings cover songs about masturbation for a living.
We see Cena, dressed up, belting out some of these covers. This did make me laugh. I like that he doesn’t take himself seriously. With me being immature I did find the songs covered, but with lyrics about masturbation inserted, funny.
When they get home, it seems everyone wants to meet Ricky. So the guys end up paying Rod to come to town, meet everyone, and leave. There’s a “bible” of all of the stuff Ricky has ever done, so Rod reads through it and gets into the character.
Long story short – Rod, who’s now convinced he’s the real Ricky, ends up with a job at Dean and JTs place of work and hilarity ensues.
An R-Rated Comedy
I’m not a big one for gross-out comedies, I find them often gross just for the sake of it, without thinking about how funny it is. Going into Ricky Stanicky, I had some trepidation and expecting it to be over the top with the gross, but it wasn’t. I wouldn’t say it was even that gross. The worst thing about it was Rod’s songs, but they weren’t that bad. Maybe my moral compass is off, but honestly, this wasn’t that R-rated.
There isn’t much else to say about the movie. It was pretty funny, good cast, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and I did find myself liking everyone. It’s not like this is going to be examined in film school in years to come.
If you fancy a giggle for a couple of hours, try it. Ricky Stanicky gets an average of 2.5 out of 5. It’s now streaming on Prime.
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