Tammy Review

This movie made more money in a single day than
The Immigrant has made in a month-and-a-half. We have failed
people. We have become monsters.

Let's get this out of the way; Tammy isn't a good movie. In fact, I'll even be bold and say it's a bad one. It's not abysmally, soul-crushingly awful like God's Not Dead or Transformers: Jesus Christ, That Movie Refused To End, but yes, Tammy is bad. And it's poor quality is only emphasized by the ambition that project contains. Ya see, the movie is really more of a drama than anything else, with numerous moments that are supposed to be devastating in terms of emotional impact. And considering Melissa McCarthy was one of three writers on the project, I gotta give her props for attempting to expand the range of movies she appears in.


Here's the problem; the script for this thing is just terrible. We spend most of the movie with two people; Tammy and her grandmother, Pearl (Susan Sarandon), neither of which are likable in the slightest. Tammy is shown to be a rude, overbearing, whiny person who ruins everything she touches. And her grandmother? why, she's an alcoholic lady who forces her granddaughter to sleep outside when she spends the night with a dude she picks up at a bar. Charming duo, right? If this was a Wolf of Wall Street-esque affair where we're supposed to be revolted by these two and their actions, perhaps these could have been effective personalities. And for a brief moment, I thought that was actually the purpose of this duo, thanks to Kathy Bates giving this great monologue where she lovingly berates Tammy to do something with her life.

Woah, hold up....are they skewing the Melissa McCarthy personality that has dominated movies like Identity Thief and The Heat? Is this actually the role where she tosses aside all that we know of her and boldly blazes new avenues for her to act in? Those were the thoughts racing through my head after that scene, which worked not only because Bates actually acts in the scene (nobody else, not even Sarandon or the charming Mark Duplass is allowed to do that in here), but because it's the first time somebody notices Tammy is a freaking mess. Unfortunately, nothing interesting comes after such a scene, with Tammy reverting back to her old self and never really improving. She keeps being annoying (a bizarre waste of McCarthy's talent, since she's the one writing these roles for herself!), but at least Sarandon shows some improvement by the end.

The film focuses so much on "drama" and the personalities of Tammy and Pearl, that any attempts at humor feel forced. And for some reason, despite the films dramatic ambitions, they still feel the need to fill the film with jokes that just don't land at all. Comedy is not this films best friend, with the film putting two gags (Tammy is loud! Pearl is drunk!) to never-ending use, which might be acceptable and even hilarious if those two weren't just awful people through and through. The fact that I have to endure schmaltzy scenes of these two reconnecting is tortuous enough, but seeing them trying to get jokes out of the duo is even more painful. However, I would like to note the two moments in the film that are actually funny(to help spare you from seeing the film itself): some of Tammy's interactions with her boss (played by McCarthy's husband, and this movies director, Ben Falcone) and a bit where Pearl compares the bag put over her head to the one Tammy wears.

OK, so, there's only two funny bits in here that actually work, and the characters and drama are a bust. So, uh, is there anything in here that I can find redeeming? Well, I suppose it's amusing (for all the wrong reasons) to hear Thrift Shop two years after it hit its popularity peak. It's good to see Kathy Bates in a major movie! Ditto for Sandra Oh (whose actually really funny in American Dad!) Aside from that, it's just interesting to look at how good intentions (make a more dramatic project!) got watered down by some terrible screenwriters, a startling lack of interesting characters and pretty much everything else that happens in this trainwreck. I guess the best thing that can be said about Tammy is that it's not the absolute worst movie I've seen this year. Oh sure, it's one of the worst, but Optimus Prime made a worst movie in the past week. So....yeah? Mild victory?