Reel Snippet – Snatched
Summary: Emily Middleton (Amy Schumer), after being fired and dumped for her boorish behavior, is stuck with two non-refundable tickets to Ecuador. With a bit of convincing, she gets her mother Linda (Goldie Hawn) to come along and enjoy the South American style. But when a date with a local man (Tom Bateman) leads to mother and daughter being kidnapped by a local crime lord (Óscar Jaenada), they have to rely on their wits and each other to escape and get to safety. It’s a race to the nearest embassy as they discover crazy characters, screwy scenarios, and even a mutual love for one another that had gotten buried throughout the years.
Review: Snatched was an unfunny slog that left me rather bummed out. I’m a bit of a fan of Amy Schumer and had a blast with Trainwrecked (which, to this day, I regret not putting on the honorable mentions of my year-end best list), but this was a load of obnoxious, run-of-the-mill junk that I’ve seen in a dozen other movies. With few exceptions, I could see every plot point coming a mile away. There were a few exceptions and even a few genuine laughs, but as I said, they were the exceptions and not the rules.
This is unfortunately one of those “comedies” that confuses noise and obnoxiousness for humor. Most of the attempted jokes are just screaming, saying lines that come off as forced, or just trying to annoy us, like the super nerdy and immature brother (Ike Barinholtz). It gets to the point where I wondered why the kidnappers don’t just gag Amy so they can get some peace and quiet. Then again, I guess that would deprive us of all of her hi-larious banter and we sure wouldn’t want that.
Oh, and Wanda Sykes is in this too. While I have nothing against her personally, I’ve noticed that a lot of films she appears in tend to be stinkers. That pretty much sums up this movie — it stinks. It wastes great talent on a pathetic premise and I don’t know what else I can dissect about it. If you see it on Netflix, Redbox, or an American Airlines movie package, do yourself a favor and give it a hard skip.
Fun Tidbit: This is Goldie Hawn’s first movie in fifteen years (her last being 2002’s The Big Bangers), but the producers didn’t originally want her in the part. It was when Amy Schumer threatened to walk if she wasn’t cast that they relented and brought Goldie on board.
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