SNATCHED: Amy Schumer & Goldie Hawn Are Caught In An Unfunny Trainwreck
The Amy Schumer hate train has been gaining momentum as of late. Her hard political speeches and in-your-face feminism have made a lot of people angry. If you don’t believe me just check the dislikes on the official trailer on Youtube. As I’m writing this review, it has 3,553 like to 7, 330 dislike ratio and some pretty nasty comments. Although I don’t understand the hate, movies like Snatched certainly won’t help her cause. Schumer’s latest comedy is disjointed, short on laughs and like her breakthrough movie title, a Trainwreck.
Losing her job and getting dumped, Emily’s (Amy Schumer) trip to Ecuador with her boyfriend is about to change, convincing her mother (Goldie Hawn) of going on the trip with her instead. When Emily meets James (Tom Bateman), they embark on a scenic drive accompanied by her mother. Their drive takes a turn when a gang of men crashes in their car, kidnaping both women. Trapped in a cellar, they must come together to escape and get back to the United States.
A Downward Spiral
Not to say Snatched doesn’t start out with potential, it does. Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn have potential to be a great duo and deliver funny content. The funniest part of Snatched is when the movie is in Ecuador. Scenes with Schumer and Bateman work most of the time and Wanda Skyes‘ first scene is pretty funny. However, when both main characters get kidnapped, the story becomes disjointed and the comedic moments become scarce. The editing gets increasingly abrupt and the film becomes more and more jarring. The comedic writing, which was decent in the beginning, doesn’t land after that event.
During the third act, the film slows down taking time to establish the most cliché ending ever. It tries to fit in the Mother’s Day narrative everyone expects from this movie. There’s a lot of aspects that were super predictable including the jokes. It doesn’t bring anything new to the genre, nor does it even do it well. Snatched ends up being a mediocre 80s-type comedy without the charm.
Wasting A Legend
A lot of chatter was emphasized on Goldie Hawn‘s great return. Her last movie was The Banger Sisters in 2002. Now, fifteen years later, she returns as an over protective mother in Snatched and is given nothing to work with. Hawn isn’t given any good jokes and she doesn’t even get to showcase her acting ability. At times, it feels like Hawn is just following Amy Schumer around because she has to. The film never truly gives her a reason to be there.
Schumer, on the other hand, gets most of the good material in an otherwise small pool of jokes. Her brand of gross-out sexual gags gets tiresome as the movie progresses. It’s not something we haven’t seen before in other comedy and after a while, it’s just not funny anymore. Besides that, Snatched doesn’t give Schumer much to work with either. A lot of her material feels rather improvised and that may be the reason why so much of the humor doesn’t land.
Luxury And Ignorant Tourism
The film skims over some pretty interesting commentary. Snatched sets up the idea of luxury tourism where tourists expect to be pampered while traveling. A few times in the film, we see Schumer‘s character calling the US embassy for help just for them to say that they cannot help them. While it’s a fresh theme, there’s never any real exploration beyond those scenes. After those quick snippets, Snatched has nothing more to say about it -wasting a real opportunity.
Instead, Snatched dives into Latino stereotypes. It depicts Latino characters as mobsters, a tiring role that Latinos are constantly cast in. With stereotypes like these, it makes it look like Latin America is a dangerous place and everyone is waiting to kidnap the first American tourists who go there. It fits numerous other narratives of the same sort and it’s always done to such an extreme extent.
Conclusion
Snatched starts out with potential before quickly slipping away turning into Amy Schumer‘s real “trainwreck”. Goldie Hawn is never able to showcase her acting ability that got her the Oscar, while Amy Schumer‘s material gets exhausted quickly. It panders to the Mother’s Day crowd. If you love your mom, you might want to stay away but if you hate her, by all means, bring her to watch Snatched.
What are your thoughts on Amy Schumer? Do you love her brand of comedy? Tell us in the comments below!
Snatched was released on May 12 in the Us and will be released on May 19 in the UK. Get more released dates here.
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