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Slammin' Salmon (The)
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Anchor Bay Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Andreas Petersen (14th April 2010). |
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The Film
 When a group of comedians make two great movies, it shouldn’t be a stretch to expect a certain level of excellence from their future work. I’m talking about Broken Lizard’s "Super Troopers" (2001) and "Beerfest" (2006). "Super Troopers" is an above average comedy, but I honestly think that "Beerfest" is a work of art. I should also note that I never saw "Club Dredd" (2004). That said, I had high hopes for "The Slammin’ Salmon" despite a trailer that was completely devoid of anything funny. I went in thinking that these guys couldn’t do wrong. I was wholly blown away with how terrible this film was. "The Slammin’ Salmon" follows the exploits of a group of waiters at the titular restaurant, owned by former boxer Cleon Salmon (Michael Clarke Duncan). Because he owes money to the Yakuza, he offers a prize to the top waiter to inspire a higher take in. For the rest of the movie, we see the different characters, each in their own quirky way, deal with the customers. We have a former TV star (Steve Lemme) who is over confident, we have a guy named Metdrapedes (Erik Stolhanske) and hey, his name kind of sounds like “meat drapes”. We have crazy guy Nuts (Jay Chandrasekhar), and boy, do I hope he takes his medication! We have stupid new guy Donnie (Paul Soter) who clashes with his twin brother chef (also Soter). We have the blonde who uses her looks to get bigger tips (April Bowlby). Lastly we have the plain-yet-good-looking girl who wants the money to become a doctor (Cobie Smulders), and I sure hope she wins! Here’s the problem. Where "Beerfest" reveled in being so non sequitur and so fast paced, "The Slammin' Salmon" works the exact opposite. All the jokes are obvious and all the characters are unoriginal. We have a guy who eats a diamond ring that’s in a brownie, and has to pass it. Then there’s the blonde waitress who uses her looks, but gets searing hot soup spilled on her face, and now her face is red. If this were the same people who made "Beerfest," I feel like her skin should have been falling off her face, but instead, it just looked like she was sunburned. I honestly can’t think of anything positive to say about "The Slammin’ Salmon" and for 98 minutes, I watched a group of people who have made me laugh until my sides hurt doddle around and not make me smile once. Once. Usually, terrible comedies leave me with one joke to retell, or one moment that made me smile. I can’t think of one from "The Salmmin’ Salmon." Everything about this movie is just wrong, and it’s hard to see how this movie came to be. Every joke, including the big payoff joke that is being strung along through the entire movie, came from a mile away. The sentimental moments were cheesy and out of place. The Broken Lizard guys weren’t funny, and it didn’t help that there were some new faces (Duncan and Bowlby) who couldn’t come near to keeping up with the group’s madcap sensibilities. This movie was a monumental failure, but I’ll always leave the light on for the guys who made Beerfest. Just get it right next time.
Video
"The Slammin’ Salmon" is presented in an HD 1080p 24/fps 1.78:1 widescreen presentation. The entirety of the film takes place in a glamorous restaurant, full of colorful lights and tones, and the transfer here does an excellent job of showing them off. Unlike the movie itself, there isn’t much to complain about here. There’s minimal noise and grain (if any), and my eyes never got bored. This isn’t an action movie that needs the explosions projected in true HD, but for a small comedy, it was pretty impressed.
Audio
Included on the disc is an English PCM 5.1 uncompressed soundtrack mixed at 48kHz/24-bit, along with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 track for good measure. Like the picture, there isn’t a whole lot wrong with this movies audio. The sound projected in pretty much every scene, even the more chaotic ones, came through clear. I never missed a joke, which I was worried I may due to the constant noise of the soundtrack and the restaurant. Optional subtitles are included in English for the hearing impaired and Spanish.
Extras
The film sports a few extras in the ways of two audio commentary tracks, a featurette, and a lone theatrical trailer, all of which are detailed below. First up is the feature-length audio commentary track with director/writer/actor Kevin Heffernan and co-writer/actor Steve Lemme. Here, the two talk candidly about the movie, and Heffernan sports a surprising amount of insight towards the actual process of making a film. The two joke around with each other, and there is hardly ever a dull moment, and while I enjoyed this track, it was sort of frustrating, making me want to ask them why the movie couldn’t have at least been this good. Overall, a strong track that is more entertaining than the film itself. Next up is an audio commentary track with the rest of The Broken Lizard crew, featuring Jay Chandrasekhar, Paul Soter, andErik Stolhanske. In between jokes, the crew discuss where most of the jokes from the film came from, and other than that, I wasn’t too interested. Unlike Heffernan and Lemme, this group tries too hard to fill dead air, commenting on everything, even when they don’t have a funny joke to offer. They are better than this! Next up is "Hellish Kitchens: Art Imitates Restaurant Life" featurette, which runs for 6 minutes and 51 seconds. In this featurette we have the Broken Lizard group in some sort of van, driving somewhere, and talking into a home movie camera, talking about how they all used to work in the same restaurant, and talk about how it served as the main inspiration for the film. The stories are sort of funny, but I could hardly hear any of the words since the outside audio of the van played over most of what they had to say. Also included is a theatrical trailer for the film, which runs for 2 minutes and 34 seconds.
Overall
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