Zac Efron leads a group of friends who’ve used an imaginary scapegoat as an alibi since childhood in comedy Ricky Stanicky – streaming now, only on Prime Video. It’s a return to the ribald comedy that Peter Farrelly (along with his brother Bobby) made his name with, says David Michael Brown.
From Cameron Diaz’s jizzy… sorry, jazzy haircut and Bill Murray’s comb-over-from-hell to giving a blind kid a decapitated parakeet and killing a hitman with atomic chili, the Farrelly brothers put the naughty into the Nineties. Their name became synonymous with the bad taste gags that became de rigueur in ’90s comedy—thanks to uproarious road movie Dumb & Dumber, under-rated bowling comedy Kingpin, the hair-raising stickiness of rom-com There’s Something About Mary, and the hot dog sausage fest that was Me, Myself and Irene.
After a few subsequent less successful efforts with his brother, Peter Farrelly went solo to direct the Oscar-winning Green Book with Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali, and joined Zac Efron and Russell Crowe on The Greatest Beer Run Ever. Now after that brief sojourn into serious filmmaking, Peter is returning to his roots with his brash “imaginary” buddy movie Ricky Stanicky, again working with Efron.
Efron plays Dean, one of three childhood friends along with Jermaine Fowler as Wes and Andrew Santino as JT, who have lied about their faux friend Ricky Stanicky ever since they wrote his name on a jacket to avoid getting caught when an incendiary Halloween gag went horribly wrong when they were kids. Now, as adults, they use their non-existent pal’s name as the prefect alibi to get out of family commitments or to head out on a lad’s weekend. Their perfect plan goes awry, however, when their spouses and partners get suspicious and demand to finally meet him.
The scheming trio lure Rock Hard Rod (John Cena), South Jersey’s premiere X-rated rock ‘n’ roll impersonator, from his midnight show on the Atlantic City strip, to act up as their faux foil. The problem is that the washed-up actor does his job a little too well and before you can say method, Rod has completely inhabited the role turning Dean, Wes and JT’s lives into chaos. As Wes tells Dean, “Rod had a fake life and he made it real. You had a real life and you made it fake!”
The film belongs to John Cena as Ricky Stanicky. In a role that has seen James Franco, Joaquin Phoenix, Nicolas Cage and Jim Carrey all considered since Jeffrey Bushell’s original script found itself on the 2010 Black List of Best Unproduced Screenplays, he shows off his Peacemaker comedy chops with aplomb. As always, he delights in poking fun at his tough-guy wrestling persona—something he has been doing since cameoing opposite Amy Schumer in Judd Apatow’s Trainwreck (2015). If seeing Cena sing profane masturbatory cover versions of classics by Devo, Alice Cooper, Peter Frampton and Billy Idol or dressed up as …Baby One More Time-era Britney Spears is on your bucket list, then Ricky Stanicky is your one-stop-shop.
Shot in Melbourne, Ricky Stanicky is a return to the ribald comedy that Peter, along with his brother Bobby, made his name with. Not only in terms of scandalous moments of mirth, and there are plenty, but also with the big-hearted message that lies behind the crassness. That’s always been the case with the Farrelly brothers’ outrageous oeuvre. If you look past the gratuitous gags, particularly at the inclusive casting, and the constant onanistic outbursts can be seen as a trojan horse for the director’s musings on love and life.
“Ricky Stanicky I think is just a hilarious movie and it’s a great message, not just a bunch of hard ‘R’ laughs,” the director told Deadline before cameras rolled in 2023. “There’s Something About Mary was ultimately about true love. There were many times when Ted, the Ben Stiller character would have just backed off except he was in love. He gets these bogus reports that Mary has got all sorts of issues; she’s got too many kids by too many guys; she’s on welfare. He still wants to find her because he loves her and that’s the ultimate message.” He concludes, spinning back to his latest feature. “The message of Ricky Stanicky is somewhat different, but I think it will resonate.”
Here’s to Ricky Stanicky, the best friend we’ve never had!
