THE PACIFIER (2005) *1/2 Stallone comedies work because Sly is funny. Schwarzenegger comedies work sometimes-albeit to a lesser extent-because he's parodying himself, and there's something inherently funny about that in the first place. I think that the Vin Diesel comedy is supposed to work more for the Schwarzenegger reason, but I came unprepared in that I've never been able to sit down for one of his action flicks. Tried one once, decided to mow the lawn or whatever instead. Whatever the approach, for at least half an hour this movie threatens to be an all-time stinkburger. The Diesel character is such an asshole bereft of redeeming qualities of any sort or magnitude, you just wish it was an action film where at least his anticipated victims would be armed and offer any hope of shooting him at close range with a Cruise Missile. But they dig into the trough of high school administrator stereotypes and fish out someone worse, which kind of salvages the thing as you wait for Vin to kick his ass. I guess that's a comedy. Carol Kane's in it, I like Carol Kane.
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