Melissa McCarthy has been making a pretty steady stream of films almost identical to this one, but where "Bridesmaids", "The Heat," and even "Identity Thief" succeeded, "Tammy" fell very short. "Tammy" is a movie about a middle-aged woman whose obnoxious personality has finally caught up to her. In the first five minutes of the film she has totaled her car, gotten fired from her job, and discovered her husband is having an affair. Her solution to this is to hit the road with her alcoholic grandmother and what follows is a cringe-worthy look at what happens when fictional crass and drunk people do whatever they want. A great idea right?
Wrong. I've always liked road-trip movies. I've always like road-trips. They bring out people's true characters, and what they're actually like when they've been alone in a car for a couple of hours. Yes, this can be pretty unpleasant when we're in the midst of it, but when we're allowed to sit back and watch, humanity becomes admirable when we can see what people are actually like with no boundaries, because the result is often good. If my opinion is asked for, that should be the goal of most films: to take a look at who we are.
So yes, I was looking forward to watching "Tammy" solely because of the fact that it's a road-trip movie. Unfortunately, this is not a road-trip movie. There are maybe three scenes in the entire film that take place in a car, and I'm pretty sure the only time we actually saw anyone driving on a highway was at the very start as Tammy was driving to work. It can be pretty hard to make a cross-country trip if you only drive through neighborhood streets, unless I'm reading the map upside- down.
"Tammy" had an outstanding cast, and it was largely wasted. Starring is of course Melissa McCarthy, playing the exact same character she always plays. That character has been very funny in the past, specifically large-screen debuting in "Bridesmaids", but here it just felt rehearsed. For what McCarthy called her passion project, I felt like she almost didn't even want to be there. Susan Sarandon co-stars as the grandmother, whose character must have been a grandmother at age thirty by the looks of it. In the outstanding (on paper) supporting cast we find Allison Janney, Kathy Bates, Sandra Oh, Mark Duplass, Nat Faxon, Sarah Baker, Toni Collette, and Dan Aykroyd. Bates and Baker specifically were very good, but were given way too little time on screen, and I was legitimately surprised Aykroyd and Colette even agreed to do this movie considering what they were given.
Director, supporting actor, co-writer, and husband to star Melissa McCarthy, Ben Falcone, attempted something different with his directorial debut, and that's where "Tammy" hurt more than anywhere else. What was advertised was an R-rated comedy, where you sit down to laugh at stupid people doing stupid things, and Falcone embraced that. Where he faulted was also trying to make this movie heartfelt with a good message behind it. What resulted was a 96 minute film where I didn't care for the characters or laugh a single time. I applaud Falcone for experimenting, but he should have realized that it didn't work and take advantage of the reshoot that they took to make some much needed changes.
I was very put off by "Tammy". I'm not a very big fan of the R- rated comedy genre in the first place, but I still laugh as the filmmakers blatantly attempt to elicit that reaction. Unfortunately, "Tammy" was not funny, and that can be a problem when that's the only reason somebody will go see this movie. So as I walked out of the theater I finally laughed as some bloopers began to play and my friend aptly stated: "Let's go. No need to watch the mistakes of the mistake."
I give "Tammy" a 5.2/10.
