A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST

A Million Ways to Die in the West

Grade: B

Starring: Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Neil Patrick Harris, Liam Neeson, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman and Amanda Seyfried

Premise: A laid-back farmer challenges his ex’s new boyfriend to a duel, and ends up receiving gunfighting lessons from a strange new woman in town.

Rated R for constant profanity and graphic sexual dialogue, crude and sexual humor, sensuality, and some violence

A Million Ways to Die in the West—Family Guy funnyman creator Seth MacFarlane’s new goofy parody of the western genre—is incredibly crude but essentially harmless. There are jokes here about slavery, whoring, drinking, nudity and sex, sex, sex, but it’s really got a heart of gold. All this movie really wants to make people do is laugh and walk out feeling good, and in that regard, it succeeds. It’s not necessarily hard-hitting, politically-savvy humor, but at least A Million Ways backs up its comedy with an actual story that could make up an actual movie—there are real elements here, not just the bare bones thrown together to provide for a gag marathon, as was the case in last month’s Neighbors. And I guess I’m a sucker for a little movie that makes me laugh and lets me feel good. If it weren’t an outrageous comedy, it would be a B, maybe C, movie, but as a diverting little treat amidst lots of hard-hitting moody action dramas, I enjoyed it. And I daresay I’ll probably watch it again.

Plot

Recently dumped by his adorable but self-centered girlfriend Louise (Amanda Seyfried), hapless sheep farmer Albert Stark (MacFarlane) is blue and hating everything about the rough, tough west. After all, as Albert notes, on the frontier, people die daily from disease, gunfights, bar fights, wild animal attacks and even “fast-moving tumbleweeds”. In the wake of his split, he’s so blue even his conservative, sunny best friend Edward (Giovanni Ribisi) and Edward’s spry hooker girlfriend Ruth (Sarah Silverman) can’t cheer him up. He’s in a bar drinking his depression away when a fight breaks out, and he happens to spot a woman in danger of being crushed by brawlers falling from the second-floor balcony. He saves the woman by pushing her out of the way of the falling bodies, and then realizes he doesn’t know her. Anna (Charlize Theron) turns out to be gorgeous, smart, and funny, and she can work a pistol like no one’s business. She and Albert form an instant connection—she consoles him about his breakup and laughs with him about Louise’s stuck-up new boyfriend Foy (Neil Patrick Harris), and she encourages him when, in a moment of high temper, Albert actually challenges Foy to a gunfight in town.

In over his head, Albert gets shooting lessons from Anna, and then they fall for each other. But Anna’s mysterious past catches up to the happy couple when her husband, notorious, deadly outlaw Clinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson) rides into town with his gang, and almost immediately hears that someone’s been kissing on his wife. And Albert, who just survived one gunfight, is soon gasping at the prospect of a gunfight with a famous killer.

What Works?

A Million Ways to Die is funny, generating laughs from Albert’s shoddy skills as a sheep farmer, Ribisi’s awkward continued courtship of a woman who has sex with dozens of men a day, a few brilliant celebrity cameos, and its many, many jokes and puns. Some of them are stupid, but if you’re looking for laughs, you’ll find them. One source of amusement is merely the fact that MacFarlane, famous for providing the clever but over-the-top caricatured voices on Family Guy and the movie Ted, is a regular-looking and sounding white guy at the end of the day. He’s not an incredibly-charismatic person on his own, all jokes and F-bombs aside, but he and Theron do generate endearing chemistry, so that we can at least root for the couple. By turns tough, hilarious and charming, Theron is the gal pal any guy would die for. Some of the other actors, such as Liam Neeson and Neil Patrick Harris, elicit laughs mainly by parodying their own work (Neeson plays a badder but stupider version of his moody tough guy, and Patrick Harris is the same obnoxious tool he is on TV’s How I Met Your Mother, but this time with a moustache).

Outrageous as this movie is, I can also note that it goes down easier than other recent comedies like Neighbors and Anchorman, because its actors are more likeable than the former’s and it’s IQ is way higher than the latter’s.

What Doesn’t Work?

Okay, if you’re looking for a shred of real seriousness, you’ve got the wrong movie. None of the main actors even attempt western accents, so if you were expecting period details and not Neeson’s Irish brogue, Ribisi’s nasally sniff and Patrick Harris’ city-boy brouhaha, well, sorry. Of course, some of the gags are dragged out way longer than they need to be, too. And even though this is a silly comedy, it’s one thing to have physical slapstick and sorta-kinda commentaries about the time (like a ‘Runaway Slave’ carnival game and a doctor whose remedies usually include dismembering barely-sick patients), and another to have dragged out potty humor routines or needless peeks at sheep privates. Unlike the harder-hitting Neighbors, there’s a nice little PG-13 movie in A Million Ways to Die.

Content

But, of course, a nice little cheap-looking PG-13 western that’s light on violence wouldn’t make a splash—even a ripple—on the summer movie scene, right? So MacFarlane and company crank up the profanity, the sexual references, and the sight gags. A Million Ways earns its R rating for sure, though, again, it’s all meant to be in good fun.

Bottom Line

It’s odd to call an R-rated comedy “innocent”, but A Million Ways to Die in the West isn’t out to really challenge anybody or shake up the comedy scene—it’s just meant to make people laugh. In that way, it succeeds. With a likeable cast and some hilarious gags, it’s a diverting-enough feel good comedy.

A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)

Directed by Seth MacFarlane

Written by Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild

Rated R

Length: 116 minutes