Hot Rod (2007)
Average Rating: 4.9/10
Reviews Counted: 104
Fresh: 41 | Rotten: 63
A few funny scenes can't save the disjointed Hot Rod, which is too silly and sloppy to hold up.
Average Rating: 4.9/10
Critic Reviews: 28
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 19
A few funny scenes can't save the disjointed Hot Rod, which is too silly and sloppy to hold up.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 292,709
My Rating
Movie Info
The comedy trio known as Lonely Island attempt their first feature-length comedy with Hot Rod. Andy Samberg stars as Rod Kimble, an inept would-be stuntman who believes his dad worked for daredevil Evel Knievel. His stepfather abuses him at every opportunity, but Rod keeps attempting tricks on his moped. After the stepfather becomes very ill, Rod gets the brilliant idea to attempt a stunt more dangerous that Knievel ever considered in order to raise the money to cure him. His master plan being
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Cast
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Andy Samberg
Rod Kimble -
Isla Fisher
Denise -
Jorma Taccone
Kevin Powell -
Bill Hader
Dave -
Danny McBride
Rico -
Ian McShane
Frank Powell -
Sissy Spacek
Marie Powell -
Chris Parnell
Barry Pasternak -
Will Arnett
Jonathan -
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All Critics (104) | Top Critics (28) | Fresh (45) | Rotten (64) | DVD (25)
What works, wonderfully, are the falls, the punch-outs (his brawls with Stepdad are brutal throw-downs) and waiting for that next accident to happen.
Top CriticIf you're looking for plausibility, this is not your movie. If you're looking for laughs, this is not your movie. If you like seeing delusional overgrown adolescents fall down a lot, then this one's for you.
We know from the Lazy Sunday bits Samberg's a funny guy, but he doesn't have enough to work with here.
Started to go bad about the time someone in casting said, "You know what? I'll bet America is just about ready for the comedy stylings of Sissy Spacek."
Samberg can't carry this, though director Akiva Schaffer supplies some hilarious, Jackass-style wipeouts.
Imagine a Stand by Me on wheels, with dialogue spoken by 20-something actors instead of 12-year-olds, and you have the essence of the script.
A perennial problem with comedy from regular collaborators is that the results feel too much like friends' in-jokes.
Awesomely dumb slapstick is for teens and adults only.
The results are barely worth an illegal download.
Oh, Napoleon Dynamite! What have you wrought? [Blu-ray]
...only a heart transplant can save the step-dad. What the movie needed was a script transplant. (Blu-ray Edition)
...comedy is a subjective thing, and what makes one person laugh may simply bore someone else. Hod Rod bored me.
Hot Rod emerges as a daffy, dorky summer surprise, a silly comedy of non sequiturs that feels like a cockeyed collaboration between Will Ferrell and Mel Brooks.
...comes off as precisely the sort of silly and nonsensical piece of work that one might've expected...
Cell phones, the Internet, '80s fashion and '70s style are all thrown together for a winning combination.
It's a simple comedy that tries to be nothing but. At times it is simple hilarity, other times it's a little too "Napoleon Dynamite" for its own good.
The disc's extras begin with a predictably goofy chat-filled commentary by the three brains behind this movie: director Akiva Schaffer and stars Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone.
Audience Reviews for Hot Rod
Super Reviewer
"Smack Destiny In The Face"
Hot Rod is a weird, weird movie. I don't see a target audience for a film like this. I always just assumed it was a family movie, but after watching it, I found out it is really geared more towards teenagers. The thing is, I can't see how any teenager would really want to watch this and I know most adults would find this as idiotic and unfunny as I did. So without an audience, you're going to fail and that's exactly what I view Hot Rod as... a failure.
Rod Kimble is a twenty something, amateur stunt man. He basically does his own stunts with his crew, which always lead to pain and no success. When his stepfather, who he hates, is dying; he decides to try to put a jumpy together and raise the money to save him. Not because he loves him, but he wants to beat the shit out of him and he needs him alive to do so. The jump he will be attempting is 15 buses and he needs to raise $50,000 in doing so.
This is one of those comedies that believes that long, no content dialogue and characters that occasionally talk weird and do stupid shit are funny. They aren't. Andy Sandberg is annoying as fuck as Rod, and that writing that supports his character couldn't be much more annoying either.
I would highly recommend skipping this one. It's boring, hard to sit through, tedious, stupid, and terribly done. I could see it distracting a 6 year old, but other than that, it's really more work than joy when you sit down to watch this one.
Super Reviewer
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- Dave: You know pools are perfect for holding water.
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- Rod Kimble: What did i just say to Dave?
- Rico: Who?
- Kevin Powell: I like to party I'm Rod.
- Rod Kimble: No! you're Kevin.
- Kevin Powell: Right, I party.
- Rod Kimble: No Kevin, I know for a fact you don't party
- Kevin Powell: Right, Dave's the party guy
- Dave: Haha sweet.
- Rod Kimble: Oh my god shut up.
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- Rod Kimble: Who do you think would win in a fight between a grilled cheese and a taco?
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- Rod Kimble: You look pretty.
- Denise: Sorry?
- Rod Kimble: I said you look shitty! Good night Denise!
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- Rico: I've been drinking green tea all god damn day!
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- Kevin Powell: Wow Rod, I can't believe she said yes.
- Dave: Yeah, well, you have only to believe if you wish to achieve, Kevin. That rhymed. Unintentional.
- Dave: Man, Rod! I am just green with jealous rage right now.
Discussion Forum
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Foreign Titles
- Hot Rod - Mit Vollgas durch die Hölle (DE)
Rod Kimble is a delusional, would be stuntman who dreams of the big time, but generally fails to do anything substantial or remarkable. Badgered on by his abusive stepfather, Rod finally gets his stuff together to organize a major stunt on the level of someone like Evel Kievel.
I think this would have worked better as a short than as a feature. It's pretty silly, ridiculous, and lame, and not really that good, but...but...it is surprisingly funny and amusing...more than once even.
In that regard it is like Step Brothers. It's a bad movie, but it gets a pass for somehow being funny and mildly entertaining more than it has any right to be. It's supremely silly, but if you are in the mood for something like that, then I guess it would be fine.