The Slammin' Salmon

A new Broken Lizard comedy from the filmmaking ‘comedy’ group that co-wrote 2005’s The Dukes of Hazzard! Discuss this article

A new Broken Lizard comedy – the filmmaking ‘comedy’ group that co-wrote 2005’s The Dukes of Hazzard – let the Oscar race commence. Actually, there’s an appeal to the troupe’s sense of humour: frat-ular and middlebrow, yes, but one that devised Beerfest (2006), a kind of Ugly American landmark of stupid.

The Slammin’ Salmon, directed by long-time Lizard Kevin Heffernan, won’t stave off grumbles of diminishing returns; the film is set in a celeb-owned Miami restaurant and many of the gags – exploding entrees, the swallowing of a diamond ring – feel like leftovers. Watching over the wannabe-upscale eatery is brutish owner Cleon ‘Slammin’ Salmon (Michael Clarke Duncan, the only consistently funny presence), a former heavyweight champ prone to disturbing his diners on horseback, punching innocent people and pitting his staff against each other in a backstabbing battle for tips. The movie soon comes to resemble a trashy live-action video game, with bipolar ‘Mongo’ (Jay Chandrasekhar) and snobby Mia (April Bowlby), among others, jockeying for position on a whiteboard. None of this is especially nourishing, but it’s peppered with enough incident to keep you from nodding off.

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