Movie Review - Tammy

Tammy (2014)

Starring Melissa McCarthy, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Allison Janney, Dan Aykroyd, Mark Duplass, Gary Cole, Nat Faxon, Toni Collette, Sandra Oh, and Ben Falcone

Directed by Ben Falcone

What an unfunny mess Tammy is.  Melissa McCarthy stars as the title character, a foul-mouthed, bellowing, and brash woman who comes home after being fired from her job at a fast food joint only to find her husband (Nat Faxon) canoodling with the next door neighbor (Toni Collette).  Obviously upset, Tammy leaves and heads two doors down to her mom's house where she demands to take her mom's car and drive far away.  While her mother (Allison Janney) understands her pain, she dismisses Tammy's dreams of starting anew, but her grandmother Pearl (Susan Sarandon) also wants to get out of Dodge and agrees to let Tammy take her car as long as she can tag along.  Tammy agrees and the two set out on a cross-country journey of discovery.

I think I mention this in every review of her films, but my introduction to Melissa McCarthy occurred when I watched the first few seasons of Gilmore Girls on tv.  I'm rewatching the show via Netflix and it makes me appreciate the sweet and charming persona that McCarthy can inhabit should she so choose.  So why does she choose motion picture vehicles in which she plays completely reprehensible, vile, vulgar, unappealing characters?  If she's trying to recapture the Bridesmaids magic that earned her a deserved Academy Award nomination, she's failing miserably.  There's nothing about the character of Tammy that makes you want to watch her.  She's slovenly sloppy, obnoxiously dimwitted, and ignorant to nearly everyone that crosses her path.  Spending ninety minutes with this woman is eighty-nine minutes too much.

McCarthy needs to seriously take a look at her choices and shake things up a bit.  She attempted that with an admirable turn in 2014's St. Vincent, but Tammy is an utter failure.  Written by McCarthy and her husband Ben Falcone, Tammy is one to avoid at all costs.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-