What Do The Critics Say?

"A wild, raucous, and wacky stoner action-comedy about three losers whose scary encounter with death and danger bonds them together in ways none of them could have ever imagined. David Gordon Green directs this stoner action-comedy and brings to its wild and raucous storyline his fascination with character-driven films. Pineapple Express is a very funny movie that is filled with startling moments of humor and unbridled playfulness." Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat SPIRITUALITY AND PRACTICE "Seth Rogen and James Franco have terrific chemistry. Frequently hilarious, occasionally sweet and often graphically violent, Pineapple Express may not be the greatest stoner movie ever made, but it will do perfectly well until we get another hit of Harold and Kumar." Lou Lumenick NEW YORK POST "Rogen and Goldberg’s script give us a wonderfully oddball bunch of characters. Pineapple Express never ceases to bust the audience's guts, even when the characters onscreen are getting shot in theirs. You don’t have to be high to laugh non-stop at Pineapple Express." Alonso Duralde MSNBC "Wonderfully vulgar, brilliantly performed, and accented with action reminiscent of an '80s buddy film." Bill Gibron POPMATTERS "Pineapple Express is one of the best comedies of the year, an original and creative mix of very dark humor, feel-good 'best friends comedy', and stoner movie." Brian Tallerico MOVIE RETRIEVER "It's HIGH-larious. "Pineapple Express" is the latest in the genre known as "stoner comedies." Its forebears are "Up in Smoke," and, more recently, "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle." Please understand two factors before you proceed: This is only for grownups, and it's not for those who are easily offended. It's smart, it's funny, and it's an instant cult hit for grownups: even for those who never heard of Cheech and Chong." Linda Cook QUAD CITY TIMES

"A comedy that brings a nicely deflating note of realism to action-film mayhem, as well as being one of the few drug movies you don't have to be high to enjoy. At heart, though, Pineapple Express isn't a dope movie; it's a movie about the wages of dope. Dale and Saul spend less time being stoned than in trying not to get stoned, mutilated and perforated by the Jones mob and its deadly rivals, the Asian gang. But it is a movie about dopes: goofy guys, born without the ambition gene, and who would not survive a minute in the drug world, or the real one, without the guardian angel of a scriptwriter hovering to think them out of scrapes." Richard Corliss TIME MAGAZINE "You needn't be a pothead to enjoy Pineapple Express; the movie; I mean the movie. It's a film in which one grown man dates a teenager, two grown men sell weed to schoolkids and a whole bunch of grown men vigorously circumvent American drug laws. But most of the time I laughed my head off, and I was sober as a judge." Amy Biancolli HOUSTON CHRONICLE "The result may well be the funniest movie of the year." Jeffrey M Anderson COMBUSTIBLE CELLULOID "Green's hilarious stoner comedy is to action movies what The Big Lebowski was to film noir." Kevin N Laforest MONTREAL FILM JOURNAL "Funny enough to make a hardened movie critic fall forward and spit on people sitting in front of him." Phil Villarreal ARIZONA STAR DAILY "Pineapple Express is a mess, but a wonderful one. It's not the ultimate movie about pot that I was expecting, instead it's a great ordinary-man action movie." Jeff Bayer THE SCORECARD REVIEW "Wildly funny and completely inappropriate, Pineapple Express combines ribald, marijuana-fueled comedy with action and violence. Pineapple Express has plenty of action and broad jokes, but it's the interplay between Rogen and Franco that makes the film truly worthwhile." James Rocchi COMMON SENSE

The Inside Story The idea for the film "Pineapple Express"was one that Judd Apatow had hidden away on a file. As he tells it: "Many years ago, I thought to myself, 'What would an action movie be like if the leads were chronically stoned?' It seemed funny to me, and I was even sober at the time." Apatow wrote the story with Seth Rogen and Rogen’s writing partner, Evan Goldberg, and then Rogen and Goldberg wrote the screenplay. At the time, the team had already written "Superbad", and Rogen had also penned several episodes of Apatow’s brilliant-but-cancelled series, "Undeclared". "At the time, I was trying to get "Superbad" made, and failing at every turn," Apatow said. "So I said to Seth and Evan, maybe you need to write something a little more commercial. Looking back now, I wonder if this idea was really the most commercial idea I could have given them, but that’s what I thought at the time." The writing team was intrigued by the chance to write an action movie and explore the comedy of the characters’ situation. "The hook for us was to create characters that are so stupid and lost, it’d take someone trying to murder them for them to realize that they need to get their act together," says Rogen. And so, Dale and Saul were born. In writing the screenplay, Rogen and Goldberg were careful to craft a story with a truly endearing core that audiences have come to expect from Judd Apatow’s comedies, and helpful comments from friends showed them the path. "Pineapple Express uses comedy to say that nothing good comes from getting high," notes Apatow. "All these guy's lives are a mess, they are going nowhere, and hopefully, almost getting murdered makes them rethink their current ways of life. I always want the movies we make to be hilarious and thoughtful. I want to feel good about what we are saying." As funny as this sounds, the filmmakers were also very aware that they had to put their characters in real peril to trigger the high-stakes action that fuels the movie. As Apatow explained: "If you don’t believe that these guys are in danger of getting killed, you won’t believe that they would ever change. So, we looked at other action comedies that we liked, "Midnight Run", "Pulp Fiction", that had a common thread of just enough silly, over the top violence to show that the characters are in way over their heads," Apatow makes a practice of table reading material very early as a way of testing the screenplay; what’s working, what’s not, which ideas could be developed, which pulled back. As he recalls: "We did a table read a few years ago with Seth and James Franco and it was hilarious. A bunch of friends came to give notes, and our buddy Ian Roberts, the actor from "Talladega Nights", said he thought the most interesting part was the idea that Seth and James did not know whether or not they were really friends or just business associates. So Seth and Evan went farther with those moments, and the scenes which focused on their developing friendship, and it got much funnier and sweeter." "That unlikely friendship is the heart of the film," producer Shauna Robertson ("Elf" & "Knocked Up") said. "When you see their friendship forged by fire, literally, you get why they would start to see each other as more than just a buyer or dealer." What stands out in the teams latest feature film is not just the spectacular action scenes or the wry comedic moments, it's the exceptional cast. That cast includes, Seth Rogen ("Superbad" & "The 40 Year Old Virgin"); James Franco ("Spider-Man" ™ I, II & III), Gary Cole ("Goodnight Vagina" & "My Wife Is Retarded"), Rosie Perez ("Riding in Cars with Boys") and Danny R McBride ("The Heartbreak Kid" & "Drillbit Taylor"). "Judd says that he doesn’t like making action movies because he’s afraid that someone is going to get hurt, but "Pineapple Express"; which seemed like it would be a comedy with some action elements; really became a true action film," says Robertson ("The 40 Year Old Virgin"). "None of us had made a movie like this before, but we were excited to do it and up for the challenge." Rogen says he was not afraid to put his body on the line. "I love action movies, and even though we knew "Pineapple Express" was going to be funny, we didn’t want to make fun of action movies; we wanted to make an action movie. To make it funny, we added a silly twist to many of the sequences, but it’s still exciting and awesome." James Franco was concise with his assesment: "It’s an action movie with characters that are the opposite of action heroes." Franco, who has the most experience in the genre, says that the action of "Pineapple Express" was some of the most thrilling he'd had to perform in his career so far. "This actually feels like there’s a lot more action in this movie than "SpiderMan" ™ just because of the nature of it is so different. In "Spider-Man" ™, we’d take a month and a half to film an action scene. On this, we did it in three or four days and it’s not in front of a green screen. It’s much more down and dirty. It feels like an action movie." Though the actors did do some training, they were careful not to train too much. "It was important that we didn’t look like we knew what we were doing. If Dale looks comfortable holding a machine gun, it’s not funny anymore," says Rogen. "I had fighting experience from my karate days as a child; just enough not to accidentally elbow Gary Cole in the head. We trained exactly as much as we needed to, but not so much that we actually looked good doing it." Is it true that he showed a lot of emotion during the filming? "Seth got so excited whenever there was a fire or somebody got punched," Franco revealed. "He’d never done action before, and it was fun to watch him." According to Gary Hymes, a veteran stunt coordinator whose massive list of film credits include "Jurassic Park", "Speed", "The Italian Job", Jet Li’s "The One", "Batman Begins" and "Wanted", "Pineapple Express" did not skimp on the action. "When I was first approached to do the movie, it was a bit on the tame side." How tame? "Three small sequences," he said. "Then we started to embellish those sequences. It was constantly growing and growing and growing, and by the end, the comedy with some action turned out to be an action picture with some comedy." "Pineapple Express" even presented challenges for Hymes, who also doubled as the second unit director. "The easiest kind of action to do is where it’s not tied into the characters; it’s gratuitous action for its own sake," he said. How did that affect this production? "We had to make it exciting, of course, but also character-driven: what can these characters do and what can’t they do? Where do we draw the line? That took a while to figure out, and it was a great experience." For director David Gordon Green, it meant walking a fine line. "I don’t think the stunts really quite play realistically," says Green ("Undertow" & "Pleasant Grove"), "but, as outrageous as it gets, we do want the audience to feel like these are real people stuck in ridiculous situations. These are people that aren’t equipped to be in an action movie; guys for whom a big Saturday evening is chewing their fingernails and smoking a joint, who suddenly find themselves in one of these circumstances where they’re holding a machine gun and have to blow a bunch of people away." Rogen says they talked to Hymes about their ability to perform stunts. "What could I actually do? What could Franco actually do? What’s safe? I think we’re doing more than I ever thought we would." Of course, it wouldn't be an action move without the obligatory car chase. The filming of this segment provided a highly memorable experience for those involved. It will also remain in the memory of cinemagoers long after they've left the cinema. "I was shooting second unit about a block away from David’s first unit, so we had to be careful not to be filming each other. David knew exactly what he wanted from the sequence, in terms of both the action and the comedy. David and I discussed everything thoroughly and it had all been storyboarded, so I focused entirely on the action, with Rosie in one car and Franco in the other; and he can’t see, because the window is full of Slushee, and he gets his foot caught in the windshield, and we cut outside the car to see him driving like that. It’s a great example of the way the action outside the car accentuates the comedy inside the car, and vice versa," says Hymes. In the end, the actors all acquitted themselves well. "We were so fortunate to have such amazing actors who are also great athletes," says Hymes. "Seth did about eighty percent of his own stunts in this film and Gary Cole did a lot, too. Rarely do you work on a film where you can have the actors do so much of their stunt work." That's not to say that there weren’t some bumps and bruises along the way. "I fractured my finger," Rogen says. "Danny cracked his head open on a breakaway bong. Franco ran into a tree our first week and got stitches in his forehead." "I guess they want to say I was tired, but whatever. It was a pretty ridiculous stunt," Franco notes. And what was it like working with Green? "The best word I could use is different," says Rogen. "One of his favorite directions is, 'Say it like you’ve got ear wax in your mouth.' 'Do it like a drunken sailor on leave.' 'Do it like a frustrated nun.' He throws you curve balls; he takes you out of your comfort zone and do something you’d never have thought of doing on your own." And Danny McBride (who has appeared in Green's independent comedy "The Foot Fist Way")? "Danny is hilarious. We’d never met him when we wrote the script, but once we did, it was like we’d written the role for him," Rogen offered. Gary Cole ("The West Wing" & "Desperate Housewives"), a big fan of Rogen and "The 40 Year Old Virgin" admits he was thrilled to join on to what some would see as a silly comedy. "You make your choices based on the material and who you’ll be working with. Not only did I like the script, I liked these guys." Rosie Perez says her greatest challenge was learning to fire a gun. "I do not like handling firearms, but my character Carol, is a sergeant, she’s been on the force for several years, and she is a badass. I’ve never sought out a role like this. I really don’t like guns; but I’m glad I did it, because I had a blast on this movie." Synopsis

Dale Denton is a Process Server who will use any disguise he can to get the job done. He's also a heavy user of the dreaded 'weed'. Dales life revolves around work, smoking dope, a grudging business relationship with the dealer Saul Silver and, his eighteen year old girlfriend Angie, who is still in High School. The only reason Dale has to visit his stoner dealer is to purchase weed. On this occassion it's to purchase Saul’s primo product: a rare new strain of pot called Pineapple Express. Leaving Saul's, Dale heads off to serve one more victim. Parked out front, Dale becomes the only witness to a murder by a crooked cop and the city’s most dangerous drug lord, Ted Jones. Dale panics and dumps his Pineapple Express joint at the scene. When it’s traced back to him, Dale and Saul run for their lives, and they quickly discover that they’re not just suffering from weed-fueled paranoia.

The Verdict "The Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow train keeps rolling along, this time with the action-packed, stoner-comedy, "Pineapple Express". Their latest effort is a departure from what fans have come to expect from Apatow. Unlike his previous films, the emphasis is not on comedy (despite many hilarious moments). This time round it's comedy with the emphasis on action, of which there is an abundance. All the ingredients are here: the bad drug dealer; a corrupt cop; a rival Asian drug gang hell bent on revenge and taking out their opposition; stoners on the run; the obligatory and spectacular car chase, and of course an action-packed shoot em up finale`. Yes, I know, it's hard to believe a good Jewish boy like Seth Rogen would get involved in a 'stoner' movie and then do most of his own stunts, but it's true! Rogen, who always comes over as an ordinary guy, is at his best, as is "Spider-man" ™ star James Franco and, relative newcomer Danny R McBride (who will next be seen as Cody in Ben Stiller's "Tropic Thunder"). Definitley not for those who find smoking a joint offensive. Certainly worth having a look at. 3 1/2 STARS." Crew Bytes "PINEAPPLE EXPRESS" was .......
directed by Sundance Film Festival Award winner David Gordon Green ["George Washington", "All the Real Girls" and "Snow Angels"]; special effects foreman Tommy Frazier ["Bad Boys II" and "Hancock"]; set decortion by Bob Kensinger ["Scream 2", "Scary Movie 2" and "Superbad"]; costume design by John Dunn ["Casino", "The Notorious Bettie Page" and "I'm Not There"]; production design by Chris Spellman ["The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" and "Superbad"]; edited by Craig Alpert ["Spelling Bee", "Borat" and "Knocked Up"]; director of photography by Tim Orr ["Trust the Man", "Snow Angels" and "Year of the Dog"]; original music by AFI Award winner Graeme Revell ["Lara Croft: Tomb Raider", "Assault on Precinct 13" and "Sin City"]. Who's Who?

Seth Rogen James Franco Danny McBride Kevin Corrigan Craig Robinson Gary Cole Rosie Perez Ed Begley Jr Nora Dunn Amber Heard Joe Lo Truglio Arthur Napiontek Cleo King Bill Hader James Remar Jonathan Walker Spencer Dana Lee Bobby Lee Ken Jeong David C Cook Howard S Lefstein Connie Sawyer

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Dale Denton Saul Silver Red Budlofsky Matheson Ted Jones Carol/Female Cop Robert Shannon Angie Anderson Mr Edwards Clark Police Liaison Officer Private Miller General Brat Scientist Cheung Bobby Ken Chris Gebert Mark Faye Belogus

Run Time 107 minutes Rated MA15+ [AUST] Copyright ©2008 - Sony Pictures - All Rights Reserved ©2008 All Rights Reserved The Movie Pages - Protected by Australian, International, Copyright & Trademark Laws.