WE'RE THE MILLERS - Movie Review

In We're the Millers, Jason Sudeikis plays David, a drug dealer who is robbed and must smuggle a large shipment of marijuana in from Mexico to repay his supplier. After seeing how the police react to a family in an RV, David decides the best way to get the job done is to hire people to play his family as cover. Getting the drugs into the States proves to be the least of David's problems. It's not until they arrive stateside that his troubles begin. Little does he know, he's been sent on a suicide mission. He doesn't so much as pick up the drugs as steal them and spends the rest of the movie on the run from the actual smuggler and supplier and trying to avoid capture by the DEA agent the "family" has befriended along the way.

We're the Millers is an okay movie, once you get past the vulgar language and graphic grossness (I think I may have scarred my 14 year old girls with the full-on deformed male frontal shots). While there's no overt sex, there is a sort of comedic scene between 18 year old Kenny (played by Will Poulter), his teenaged "sister" Casey (played by Emma Roberts) and his "mother" Rose/Sarah (played by Jennifer Aniston), that is as uncomfortable (watching it as a parent with her children) as it is funny. We're the Millers is on par with Grown-ups and Bridesmaids in its bawdy humour--remember the blue pee scene in Grown-ups and the diarrhea attack in Bridesmaids?--that is to say, unrefined. While a tarantula bite on the testicles is nothing to laugh about, Millers milks it for all its worth. Equally disturbing is the scene in which the a Mexican policeman's expectation of a bribe is confused with the expectation of oral sex, compounded by the discussion in which David convinces Kenny that he must take one for the team and satisfy the officer.

Jason Sudeikis plays the part of David with initial cool detachment, but, as you might expect, he mellows toward the end and realizes that he does, in fact, have some responsibility for his adopted family. Jennifer Aniston is more believable as the caring matriarch than the down and out stripper. Emma Roberts and Will Poulter play their parts--the battle-worn street kid with a heart of gold and the virgin ingénue--with stereotypical demeanour. It was nice to see Kathryn Hahn and Molly Quinn in the parts of the DEA agent's wife and daughter. I've liked Kathryn Hahn since her Crossing Jordan days and enjoyed the way she plays the sexually frustrated prim-and-proper wife. I also really like Molly Quinn in her role as Alexis Castle, but her talent was underutilized in this movie, where she's asked to do nothing but look as innocent as Poulter's character, which she does, but it's not enough for her to shine.

I went to see We're the Millers because it was either that or The Butler playing at my local theatre and neither my husband or kids were interested in a heavy, historical docu-pic, but I wasn't disappointed. We're the Millers is a lighthearted, funny movie that had me laughing out loud at times and squirming at others. It's mostly potty humour with a little quick and clever repartee mixed in, but it's a movie that shouldn't disappoint. 

About the Author

Elise Abram, English teacher and former archaeologist, has been writing for as long as she can remember, but it wasn’t until she was asked to teach Writer’s Craft in 2001 that she began to write seriously. Her first novel, THE GUARDIAN was partially published as a Twitter novel a few summers back (and may be accessed at @RKLOGYprof). Nearly ten years after its inception Abram decided it was time to stop shopping around with traditional publication houses and publish PHASE SHIFT on her own.

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