Hit & Run (2012)

It’s hard not to admire what Dax Shepard and David Palmer were going for with their new car chase comedy Hit & Run. This was never going to be high art, but it’s the kind of raunchy, easy-breezy romp that, in theory, we could use a whole lot more of. And yet, it fails on just about every level. This is a lifeless, shapeless blob of a movie that is made watchable only by fun performances across the board. You can tell that Shepard and company had a good time making it, but the finished product has no sense of purpose or direction. It just meanders for 100 minutes and ends without generating an ounce of energy.

The film revolves around young lovers Annie and Charlie, played by real-life couple Shepard and Kristen Bell. Charlie is in the Witness Protection Program, and is watched over by an incredibly clumsy marshal played by Tom Arnold. When Annie is offered a job in Los Angeles, Charlie reluctantly agrees to head back to California and show up again on the grid. Thus begins a series of highway chases involving all of the above, along with an ex-bank robber played by Bradley Cooper in too brief a role.

The film then alternates between raucous R-rated comedy and road trip movie, often pausing for long and inane conversations between Bell and Shepard. While nothing of much importance is said in these scenes, they at least have some punch to them. Shepard is obviously trying to recreate the average road trip experience, which isn’t so much about racing and shooting as it is about silence and the occasional discussion about the banalities of everyday life. There is always a great deal of joy to be found in a conversation between two folks with this much chemistry, even if these scenes clash with the rest of the movie.

Otherwise, Hit & Run is just a series of unfunny gags occasionally interrupted by some boring car chases that seem to care quite a bit about the automobiles but not the human beings inside of them. Outside of Shepard’s character, we never really get to know anybody to a significant degree, and even the surface-level stuff rings hollow. Making this kind of throwback movie is not a terrible idea, but when it’s executed like this we’re too often reminded of why the genre died in the first place.

Grade: D+