Tipsheet Reviews
Video

Rolling Kansas

COMEDY

Color, R (mature themes, language, drug use, brief nudity), 89 min., PPV 90 days, DVD $24.95, VHS $39.95

DVD: no extras

Street: Aug. 17, Prebook: July 27

First Run: Video Premiere

Cast: Charlie Finn (Super Troopers), Sam Huntington (Not Another Teen Movie), James Roday (Miss Match), Jay Paulson (Go)

Director: Thomas Haden Church

MONARCH

Story Line: With both his marriage and business failing, depressed Dick Murphy (Roday) and his brothers (Huntington, Paulson) gather a couple of friends and set out on a quixotic quest in search of a secret forest of marijuana grown by the U. S. government for experimental purposes.

Bottom Line: This indie road movie, directed by Ned and Stacy co-star Church (who also appears in dual roles), has all the clichés we've come to expect from the genre--including the obligatory stop at a strip club--and it relies heavily on cheap laughs at the expense of a wheelchair-bound brother and a narcoleptic friend. The trip is launched following the discovery of a map left to the brothers by their hippie parents; a plot point that's silly even for a movie like this one. Church's staging and sense of pace leave something to be desired, and a few stretches of the film become tedious. But there are compensations, including hilarious, seemingly improvisational turns by guest stars Kevin Pollak (playing a federal agent with Church as his partner) and Rip Torn (as an eccentric, philosophical horticulturist). Tailor-made for college-age stoners, Rolling Kansas should achieve modest success at rental, though we don't see much sell-through potential here. --Ed Hulse

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