“Snatched” may star such nice talents as Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn, and it may be crafted by writer Katie Dippold, producer Paul Feig, and director Jonathan Levine, but it doesn’t have anywhere to go. It’s so short, that it crams all these ideas in one silly romp. It has break-ups, scared mothers, expensive vacations, kidnappings, escapes, jungles, and nerdy brothers trying to annoy the government into starting a rescue mission; and yet, you barely find anything special.
Schumer stars as Emily, another “Trainwreck” character of hers, who loses her job and boyfriend (Randall Park), and has a non-refundable tickets to Ecuador. Her mother Linda (Hawn) used to be fun, according to her photo album, but now she’s so scared that she tightly locks her doors. Emily decides to take her to South America for the trip.
She hooks up with a hot adventurer (Tom Bateman), who offers to take both her and her mother on an adventure. The two women end up being kidnapped, and as they escape, Emily kills the bad guy’s (Oscar Jaenada) only son and nephew, both by accident. Now, they’re lost in the jungle, looking for the nearest US Embassy.
“Snatched” only has two funny moments. One is when Linda buys Emily a dog whistle, thinking it is a rape whistle. Reminds me of how honest the humor was in last year’s “The Meddler,” the kind of honestly I can barely find in comedies these days. And the only time Ike Barinholtz’s nerdy character made me laugh is when he tells a government officer (Bashir Salahuddin) that he speaks Klingon (the “Star Trek” language). Other than those jokes. Most of the humor is either predictable or just lame.
Schumer and Hawn work much better than Melissa McCarthy and Susan Sarandon in “Tammy,” but they don’t have much funny stuff to offer. And what’s the point of casting Joan Cusack as Wanda Sykes’ partner if her character has cut off her own tongue in order to keep government secrets from terrorists? She’s charming in general, but apparently, not here. “Snatched” is too weak to be terrible, but it’s also too weak to be funny.
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