“Grandma’s Boy” (2006) – 1/5 Stars

Call me old fashioned, but I like movies with plots. I thought “stoner comedy” was just a way to more specifically describe a comedy in which lots of weed is smoked and the people watching it are more apt to enjoy it high. “Grandma’s Boy,” however, has decided this is a full-blown niche and that stoners represent a piece of the comedy pie that need to be reached. Apparently, Allen Covert (star and producer) and the Happy Madison gang were right, but that doesn’t make “Grandma’s Boy” any less boring and unfunny. They might be completely stoned — but the characters are mostly half-baked.

Alex (Covert, a longtime supporting player for Adam Sandler, first-time star) is a mid-30s professional video game tester whose roommate has gotten them evicted. He could look for a new apartment, but then we don’t have a movie. After trying a couple friends, he ends up living with good ole Grandma Lilly (Doris Roberts of “Everybody Loves Raymond”). She wakes him up a 6 am and has him do chores and soon he’s falling asleep on the job and so the new video game sequel might not get done on deadline.

Like most people, Alex deals with his frustration and eradicates boredom by either playing video games or getting high or both. His friends/co-workers all do the same thing. Most of them are virgins that live at home in addition to loving video games. They’re all awkward and all with the exception of Nick Swardson and Joel Moore (only at times) their characters aren’t funny. Funny if you’re blazed … sure, i suppose, but I can’t say from experience.

Maybe all we loser guys like is getting high, playing video games and awkwardly ogling women with specific attention on their breasts, but even so, it shouldn’t be the driving force of an entire film. Neither should old women getting high on accident (saw that one coming) or being the but of gross-out sex jokes — but that’s what happens when a film isn’t about anything. No conflict occurs until the last 20 minutes outside of the slight problems of being out of pot, Alex trying to get the hot girl (Linda Cardellini) to like him and the guys scrambling to finish their levels for the video game deadline.

Characters can be the saving grace for these meandering stoner flicks, but aside from a lovable Doris Roberts, the aforementioned Swardson as the virgin friend who lives with his parents and calls them his roommates and Joel Moore’s skill at making robot noises, there’s little character ingenuity. Covert is a run-of-the-mill main character with no comedic dimensions, his dealer friend Dante is an inept actor and waste of screen time and Jonah Hill and Kevin Nealon are written so far into the periphery it doesn’t matter.

If you like movies about nothing and watching them in a state of mind and body that enhance that nothingness, “Grandma’s Boy” will likely be just what you’re looking for. Those who need a little more talent and wit to get on board with a comedy will be left unaffected. The most I can say for “Grandma’s Boy” is that it’s watchable despite its pointlessness. It won’t feel like a total waste of time but you’ll wish you did do drugs so you could at least have made the most of the hour and a half.

1/5 Stars

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Grandma’s Boy (2006)
Directed by: Nicholas Goossen
Written by: Berry Wernick, Allen Covert, Nick Swardson
Starring: Allen Covert, Doris Roberts, Linda Cardellini