Just Joshin'...Not!

Cedar Rapids is not a new release but I have gotten continuous enjoyment out of its' characters and story. Thank goodness for RedBox because I do draw a line - it was full price at Target yesterday and I passed it up, so Amazon here we come! But I digress... I love Cedar Rapids. Ed Helms' portrayal of the innocent Tim Lippe is hilarious, heartfelt, and heartbreaking. The audience wants so much for Tim to wake up and enter adulthood that it is both sad and funny to watch him tell a prostitute about the dangers of smoking (it will increase your premiums) simply because it does not even enter his mind that she is anything other than a perfectly nice person. But the scene stealer here is John C. Reilly as Dean Zigler, whose boldness and politically incorrect humor run counter to everything Tim knows. Reilly gives the audience some of the biggest laughs in the movie. The ASMI-azing Race sequence, particularly the swimming pool word scramble, is laugh out loud funny. I have watched and immediately backed up and watched again the end cabin sequence because Reilly's reaction to lighting his fart on fire is priceless. I admit to enjoying some low brow humor, but don't let that deter you from this movie because this is not a bathroom humor movie. Cedar Rapids is, at its' core, a traditional coming of age story about one man's journey to adulthood and the friendships that get him through it. The fact that the person coming of age is a forty year old man, well, it just makes the story that much more amusing.