‘Ricky Stanicky’ Showed Up Too Late

When John Cena made his almost naked performance at the Academy Awards, all I could think was, “Hey, there’s my crazy buddy Ricky Stanicky doing his thing!”. And as it went on, I felt the exact same thing while watching Ricky Stanicky, the movie that director Peter Farrelly has been trying to make for 15 years and is finally available on Prime Video: “This is not funny at all.”

But before we get into the story of the 15 years it took to make this film, which I must say is not exciting, let’s get right to the plot: Three kids try to pull a prank at I don’t know who’s neighbor’s house on a Halloween night and and the whole thing goes terribly wrong. Like, let’s call the cops wrong. To avoid taking responsibility, they make up an imaginary friend named Ricky Stanicky, who from that moment on becomes the scapegoat for all the mischief, madness, spontaneous outings, wild escapades, and all the bad things the three have done since they were kids until 20 years later, when they’re grown up, yet still totally messed up. Ricky Stanicky has always been there (at least his name has) for them to blame for everything.

But none of their family members, other friends or neighbors have ever seen Ricky in person, because he obviously doesn’t exist. And that’s where I say to myself: 15 years of developing this script and this little detail never crossed Mr. Farrelly’s mind? I imagine it did, because the rest of the premise is to have Ricky become someone real because the three friends, Dean (Zac Efron), Wes (Jermaine Fowler) and JT (Andrew Santino), have screwed up so badly that the only possible (yet irrational) way out is to continue the Ricky Stanicky charade instead of …. you know, telling the truth and being honest.

What happened? Susan, JT’s wife, is pregnant and her baby shower is coming up, but that day is the Marc Rebillet concert in Atlantic City and Dean has tickets. Dean takes a phone call in front of their wives. The caller is supposedly Ricky Stancky announcing that his testicular cancer has returned and that he is alone in Albany, New York. The boys’ sweet wives insist that they accompany good old Ricky, and the three of them go partying in Atlantic City. What’s wrong with that, besides the lies, etc.? Well, while they are there, Susan goes into labor and is about to give birth.

After the concert, in the casino bar, Dean meets an actor who calls himself Rock-Hard Rod (John Cena), the lead of a terrible show where he parodies famous songs but using sexual content that is as stupid as it is boring. Dean and his friends hire him to play Ricky Stanicky in real life and thus close the doubts of Stanicky’s existence in front of their families and friends.

15-year-old jokes

I’m trying to sort out the problems with this movie, and I think the main problem is that during the 114 minutes it lasts, I didn’t laugh once. Which is not good if it’s a comedy. I must admit that I owe Peter Farrelly some of the most hilarious moments of my entire life. But with Ricky Stanicky he owes me for the 114 minutes of agony I endured.

Farrelly wrote the first draft of this movie 15 years ago. And for a year, Jim Carrey was supposed to play Stanicky. That would have been great at that time, in that era. Because the big problem is that this movie doesn’t feel current, it feels old, dated. Like they made it 15 years ago. Cheap, scatological jokes give weight to the humor of the character Ricky Stanicky. Peter Farrelly said in an interview that it took years to refine the script, so I can’t imagine how crazy the original draft was. And I don’t know how much they refined the script. We’re not talking about The Godfather here.

The truth is that everything about this movie is weird, how weird? Well, they shot it in Melbourne, Australia, which is standing in for Providence, Rhode Island. So every once in a while there are characters who talk like they’re Australian and you just think, um, apparently there are a lot of Australians living in Providence.

Another problem is that the entire weight of the film falls on John Cena, who really gives his best and overshadows the three supposed protagonists, who are poorly structured and lacking in depth. I know Zac Efron because he’s Zac Efron, also the black friend who is gay and that’s his only reference and the other one doesn’t matter at all. This trio is just a prop in the film for Ricky Stanicky to unleash his surprising abilities and manage to convince everyone that he is not only real but very cool and smart, although I repeat, they do this with zero comedy.

I won’t spoil the ending of the movie for you, but Rock-Hard Rod is so good as Stanicky that he not only manages to convince everyone, but also to gain trust and even to get a job, he even appears in a documentary, which is the best role of his poor life as an actor. But lies always come out and blah blah blah blah. There is a happy ending.

This movie is a bad reminder of how good Peter Farrelly was at making this kind of comedy. Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary, and others…but it’s also a reminder that every era has its comedic hooks. Today, it would be unusual and unnecessary to see the Andrew Dice Clay of the 80s playing a narcissistic macho man, or Ricky Stanicky singing over and over about masturbation. The only memorable thing is Cena’s surprising effort and achievement in acting well in such a train wreck.