![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sq_tammy-300x300.jpg\" "\\"sq_tammy\\"")
<\/p>\nBy Bob Garver<\/p>\n
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\u201cTammy\u201d is a movie where we\u2019re supposed to laugh at bad things happening to a pathetic character. Tammy (Melissa McCarthy) is responsible for a lot of the bad things about her life, but the world keeps piling problems upon her anyway. She is not likeable or resilient enough to us to root for her, but not heinous enough for us to root for her misfortune and comeuppance. We\u2019re not rooting for anything except for the movie to be over.<\/p>\n
As the film opens, Tammy loses her job, her car and her marriage in short order. Her level of fault in these matters is debatable, but the temper tantrums she throws in response are definitely ill-advised. Needing to run away but with nowhere to run to, she agrees to a road trip to Niagara Falls with her drug-addled grandmother (Susan Sarandon, getting eaten alive by the dumb script).<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 The plot is pretty much your standard road trip movie. The women bond, they party, they argue, they fight. They do irresponsible things that make them desperate for money. They do irresponsible things that land them in jail. Romantic interests are introduced in the form of the game-as-ever Gary Cole for Sarandon and an uncomfortable-looking Mark Duplass for Tammy. I get that their relationship is supposed to be initially awkward, but I never got the impression that the Duplass character was doing anything other than indulging Tammy just to be polite.<\/p>\n
The humor mostly revolves around Tammy\u2019s obnoxious personality. McCarthy brings her typical outspokenness to the role, but is sorely lacking the charm needed to make the character tolerable. The film is directed by Ben Falcone, McCarthy\u2019s husband. I think the goal was to push the two as some sort of comedic power couple and prove that Falcone is just as talented as his Oscar-nominated wife. Falcone\u2019s direction is meandering and otherwise poorly paced. If I am to think that the two are equally talented because of \u201cTammy,\u201d it\u2019s because Falcone has dragged McCarthy down to his level.<\/p>\n
My last two reviews (\u201cThink Like a Man Too\u201d and \u201cTransformers: Age Extinction\u201d) have each been one-star. I don\u2019t want to earn a reputation as a sourpuss, but those were both terrible movies. \u201cTammy\u201d is pretty lousy too, and it was on track to the same fate as I found nothing remotely enjoyable about its first hour. But then a ray of sunshine peeked through in the form of Sarandon\u2019s distant cousin played by Kathy Bates. Bates gives the movie a shot of respectability that it doesn\u2019t deserve. That backhanded compliment is the nicest thing I\u2019ve been able to say about any movie in the last three weeks.<\/p>\n
I think my feelings toward \u201cTammy\u201d can best be summed up by that scene where she robs the fast food joint, the one that they\u2019ve been showing in the trailers for what seems like forever now. Tammy is breaking the law, but her intentions are good. She\u2019s threatening the employees\u2019 lives, but she\u2019s kind of nice about it. She bumbles and bungles at every turn, but she\u2019s technically successful. Do these conflicting elements give the character or the film a complex dual nature? In a better movie they might, but here they just cancel each other out into in a dull mush that I wish I could have avoided altogether. In this case, I sympathize with the employees she robs. Tammy\u2019s fake gun isn\u2019t fooling anybody, but they have to take it seriously because of corporate policy. Similarly, \u201cTammy\u201d isn\u2019t fooling me into thinking it\u2019s an interesting movie, but I have to take it seriously because it made the most money of all the new releases this past weekend.<\/p>\n
One and a Half Stars out of Five.<\/p>\n
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\u201cTammy\u201d is rated R for language including sexual references. Its running time is 96 minutes.<\/p>\n
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