Review: "Snatched"

Growing up with a mom who adores Goldie Hawn, I had seen the bulk of the Hawn filmography by age 10.

Foul Play, in particular, was a mainstay at the Carden household, rented out countless times at our local library. Much as I enjoyed that one, Death Becomes Her won me over even more. In hindsight, I don't think I've ever disliked a Hawn picture, sans maybe Town & Country, in which she has a modest supporting role. With her presence, she has brightened up even the most middling of comedies, turning the likes of Protocol and Wildcats in something worthwhile.

Hawn's latest picture, Snatched, once again finds the actress in rich form, making the most out of rather uninspired proceedings. She and fellow leading lady Amy Schumer have a blast here and, for their ebullience alone, the film is worth a look.

After Schumer's Emily is dumped by her wannabe-rock star boyfriend (Randall Park), she finds herself stuck with a nonrefundable vacation to Ecuador. With no interest from friends in joining her on the trip, Emily turns to mom Linda (Hawn) to venture on this journey. Overseas, Emily falls for the dashing James (Tom Bateman) but their excursion, alongside a hesitant Linda, into Colombia for a day trip turns treacherous as the mother and daughter wind up at the center of a kidnapping plot by (painfully nondescript and one-note) South American criminals. They manage to escape but, with the State Department of scant help, must rely on their own wits to somehow get to the nearest U.S. embassy, in Bogota.

Comparisons have understandably been made between Snatched and 1984's Romancing the Stone, which sent Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner on a wild Colombian adventure. The tone, humor and violence of Snatched, however, rings much closer to something like 2015's Spy, though this picture isn't nearly as successful as the Melissa McCarthy one. This film even has its own deadpan middle-aged badass (Christopher Meloni), like Jason Statham in Spy.

Hawn and Schumer are a delight to watch here, even when the material is so slapdash. The supporting cast is game too - Meloni is a hoot as a Trader Joe's manager-turned-jungle warrior; Joan Cusack and Wanda Sykes are a welcome presence as a special ops team keeping an eye out for Emily and Linda; and Ike Barinholtz and Bashir Salahuddin deliver some of the film's funniest moments as Emily's obnoxious brother and a government employee with negligible interest in saving the gals. 

Like Schumer's Trainwreck, which I also gave a B-, Snatched evokes nearly as many sighs as it does laughs. Still, it's not bad and it's most certainly worth checking out, if exclusively for Hawn's first big screen appearance in 15 years.

B-