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Snatched review: Amy Schumer's slapdash comedy isn't the comeback Goldie Hawn deserves

Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn in Snatched - Landmark Media
Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn in Snatched - Landmark Media

Director: Jonathan Levine. Cast: Amy Schumer, Goldie Hawn, Joan Cusack, Wanda Sykes, Ike Barinholtz, Christopher Meloni. 15 cert, 97 mins

If Snatched proves anything, it’s that pairing Goldie Hawn and Amy Schumer for a mother-daughter action-comedy is not half the battle, but a quarter at best. You salute the double act, then wish they’d picked a better venue than the perilous jungles of South America. And much better characters. It’s impossible not to come out wishing it were better.

It’s jolly enough for a little while. Schumer’s Emily has a nice string of introductory scenes – she’s prepping for a holiday to Ecuador, with the rock-star boyfriend who’s about to pre-empt it by dumping her. The world’s most work-shy sales assistant, she thinks of little but number one at all times, and has the Instagram account to prove it.

Who to wingman her on this non-refundable trip? Her friends don’t seem overjoyed by the idea; in fact, most of them sound like they hate her. In comes her mother Linda (Hawn), a divorced and pathologically risk-averse cat lady, who needs some heavy arm-twisting, but relents.

There’s still promise, even if casting Hawn as a homebody killjoy is no one’s real idea of fun. When Emily steps inside and greets one of the cats with a weary death stare – “hello, Philip...” – there’s an improvisatory spark still bouncing around, and you trust the funny ladies to help it fly.

Joan Cusack, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes in Snatched
Joan Cusack, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes in Snatched

It’s a fast fade when the actual plot kicks in: a predictable kidnapping by predictable marero stereotypes, justifying all Linda’s suspicions about how scary America’s bottom half is for white people. Few of the moves the film makes to extricate the duo feel inspired by anything other than committee thinking. Slapstick manslaughter occurs. The kidnappers see red. The US state department is comically disinterested. Repeat.

It would be overly generous to say the supporting cast race to the rescue. They amble in half-heartedly. Joan Cusack, as a butch ex-Special-Ops holidaymaker with a chatterbox partner (Wanda Sykes), gets no lines – she cut her own tongue out to avoid being tortured – but we wait in vain for a non-verbal punchline, either. Christopher Meloni is fine in a one-joke role as a wannabe Crocodile Dundee, but his big payoff is mistimed. Ike Barinholtz largely clogs up the works as Schumer’s agoraphobic brother.

Goldie Hawn and Amy Schumer in Snatched
Goldie Hawn and Amy Schumer in Snatched

The lamest thing about the script is how every character, including the main two, just peddles their one fixed attribute, hostages to sitcom formula. Schumer ploughs her usual furrow with good timing, without exactly stepping things up a gear.

As for Hawn, you want her to fling off Linda’s straitjacket and cut loose, but the film leaves her in the lurch. She’s meant to be a former wild child getting back in touch with herself, but it’s almost as if a whole reel is missing when this actually took place.

On the plus side, she looks fantastic. Let’s call this her dry run for a much more satisfying comeback, and next time see if Kate Hudson’s free.

From Sixties 'It' girl to Amy Schumer's mother: the life and times of Goldie Hawn

 

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