Bad Neighbours

It’s funny.  It’s got a good cast that works together really well to deliver a lot of good laughs. I’m not going to call it a classic but it’s a funny movie and I left the cinema with a smile on my face.  

Mac and Kelly (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne), a happily married couple, move in to a new neighbourhood with their newborn baby. The two are somewhat struggling with the life changes and work having a new child brings, as well as how having a baby prevents them from doing as they’d like, but they seem content with how their new life is shaping up. Things quickly go awry when a frat house moves in next door, run by Teddy (Zac Efron) who wants to party his way into fratboy history. A feud quickly begins between the two, which escalates quickly into a full-on war between neighbours as Mac and Kelly try and get the frat to leave, while the frat play increasingly intrusive pranks on the couple.

It’s a simple set up, but it works well. There’s a wide variety of comedy topics on offer. Mac and Kelly lead to jokes about child rearing, breastfeeding and marriage, while the frat house is host to a lot of dick-related fratboy jokes. Combined there’s jokes about age and the generation gap (summed up perfectly in a conversation about who they think of as Batman, Michael Keaton or Christian Bale). The film’s sense of humour, unsurprisingly, is similar to many Seth Rogen-starring comedies, such as This is the End, Pineapple Express and Superbad. There are a lot of dick jokes, some gross-out ones and pot features heavily in many scenes. Whether this is a good or bad thing is entirely up to you.  

The cast works together really well. Seth Rogen does his usual routine but it works really well here, especially in conjunction with Rose Byrne (who really has shown chops for comedy and gets to use her native accent). Rogen and Byrne actually work really well together, playing a believable couple. Most surprising of all is Zac Efron, showing serious chops as a more mean-spirited, dumber character than the generic clean-cut boy he usually plays.

The movie does a surprisingly good job in offering a deeper reason into the feuding from both sides. The feud is largely fuelled by panic from both parties. Mac and Kelly, still adjusting to life with a child, are afraid that their days of freedom and partying are over, and are a bit jealous of their new neighbours (though they get their chance to party just as hard). On the flip side, Teddy is panicked about his future, with his failing grades and non-existent job prospects. While it doesn’t sound like much, it gives more weight to the increasing escalation of the sabotage and pranks.

In this way Bad Neighbours is the sort of movie that Judd Apatow has unsuccessfully been trying to make these last few years; the sort of comedy that takes a light look at adult problems and issues, and portrays life in the somewhat more realistic, less glamourized form. Things like Rogen and Byrne’s attempts at ‘spontaneous’ sex, their odd quirks and the way they try and use mental gymnastics to justify a plan to bring a one year old to a rave. They work really well here thanks to the writing and performances (might be weird seeing a random smackdown of Apatow in a movie he’s unrelated to, but the man has been in a downward spiral for forever – his movies keep getting longer and less funny).

So in the end I had fun with Bad Neighbours. I went in with checked expectations, and found them met pleasantly. It’s not an earth-shattering comedy, and while I enjoyed it I’m not sure if it’ll work its way into my DVD collection (for me it wasn’t as good as 21 Jump Street or Hot Tub Time Machine), but I’d still say it’s worth watching.