In the movie Blockers, when three parents stumble upon their daughters’ pact to lose their virginity at prom, who have created a ‘sex pact,’ they launch a covert one-night operation to stop the teens from sealing the deal. Leslie Mann, Ike Barinholtz and John Cena team up as the three parents in Blockers, the directorial debut of Kay Cannon (writer of the Pitch Perfect series).
It’s really the parents who take center stage in this raunchy and hilarious R-Rated comedy, unlike the kids who usually steal the spotlight in similar themed films; think the American Pie franchise.
The three high school girls (Kathryn Newton, Geraldine Viswanathan and Gideon Adlon) are initially shown meeting as adorable kindergarteners, before jumping ahead where we find them preparing for prom night, and jumping on the idea of sharing the big sex moment as a kind of anniversary. (One is actually wrestling with coming out as a lesbian, and that adds a nice touch to the proceedings.)
Inevitably, their respective parents — all helicopter parents – single mom Lisa (Leslie Mann), tear-prone dad Mitchell (John Cena) and divorced dad/perpetual screw-up Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) — get wind of the scheme, with the first two hell-bent on interceding, while the third — having become distant from his kid since the split — tagging along without endorsing the idea of trying to stop them.
The raunchiness of the the film is part of the fun. In a completely unexpected turn, Gary Cole, (Mike Brady in The Brady Bunch big screen movies), goes full frontal while chasing his wife, Gina Gershon, around the house in a game of sex cat and mouse taken to a whole new laugh-out-loud level. They’re the type of modern parents that share their sex lives stories with their son, one of the boys who plan on deflowering one of the girls who have made the pact to lose their virginity.
What Blockers does, especially in the final scene, is show that the kids are much more mature than their parents and have taught them how to grow up by teaching them a hilarious lesson.
Grade: B+
Blockers Review by Tim Nasson
