Cedar Rapids

source: Cedar Rapids

I like the actors in this movie. Ed Helms is one of my favorite actors. If you have no moral code whatsoever then this movie deserves a rating of at least 8 on a 10 scale. As a Catholic this movie offends my core beliefs. For starters, Tim is screwing around with his former teacher outside of marriage. Then, when Tim goes to the insurance convention he gets drunk and uses that as a reason to justify having sex with Ann Heche's character who happens to be married and a mother of several young kids. After this Tim hangs out with a prostitute at a drug party where he does a lot of drugs and kisses the prostitute. His friends stop him from having sex with the prostitute. Then Tim bribes the president of the insurance association to win the coveted double diamond award. Of all these sins Tim is only sorry that he bribed the association president. Also, in this movie there is a lot of demeaning sexual talk. Lots of gutter language. There is even a scene where Tim is taking a dump and another agent barges into the bathroom only to realize how stinky the room has become. Well, duh! That scene was not funny at all. Overall, this movie demeans the human spirit and glorifies bad decision making.

Do you even know where Cedar Rapids is? Can you locate it on a map? It's in Iowa, look on the east side of the state, now look a little north of Iowa City. There you got it. You might have heard of it because of some awful flooding a few years back. So, why make a comedy movie about the second largest city in Iowa? Why not? It's a clean comedy slate; you don't know much about the town and just about anything can take place there. Heck, as far as you know it could be the next Las Vegas. With all the meth labs, same sex marriages and Indian casinos, anything goes in Iowa. Who needs Vegas when you got the Rapids? "Cedar Rapids" is a story about a likable insurance salesman, Tim Lippe (played by Ed Helms) who has spent his entire life in Brown Valley, Wisconsin. He lives alone. He is pre-engaged to his grade school teacher (played by Sigourney Weaver). He works at Brown Star Insurance Company. He loves what he does and he loves being a resident of Brown Valley. Tim's boss, Bill Krogstad (played by Stephen Root), asks Tim to go to Cedar Rapids for the annual insurance convention. At the convention they will award the top insurance agency with the prestigious Two Diamond Award. Tim makes it to Cedar Rapids (via his first airplane flight, ever) and ends up rooming with two other insurance agents, Ronald Wilkes (played by Isiah Whitlock Jr.) who delivers the film's cleanest jokes. And then there is Dean Ziegler (played by John C. Reilly) who is rarely seen without a drink in hand and delivers the dirtiest jokes of the film. Once the three meet the comedy of the film starts kicking into high gear. There are f-bombs, bathroom humor, locker room humor, sophomoric zingers, sex jokes, drinking jokes and many more lewd sight gags to keep the audience smiling, laughing or shaking their heads in disbelief. The humor was done well with a cast that seemed to click; no one single actor took the spotlight from the rest of the troupe. Aside from the crude jokes we see a few romantic relations develop with Tim. One of the relations is with a prostitute (played by Alia Shawkat) and the other is with Joan (played by Anne Heche), an insurance agent from Omaha. It will always baffle my mind how an average Joe can meet a prostitute and an attractive red head then develop relationships with both of them all in a 24-hour period. Tim engages in some heavy drinking with his new friends, ends up spending the night with Joan and blows the deal to win the Two Diamond Award. He digs deep inside his dark place to do the unthinkable to win that award. Should you see this movie? Yes, it's a funny movie. It could potentially be a comedy hit, which you don't see too many of in these winter months. The foul language is intense; you should go in expecting some crude humor because with Reilly's mouth, you will get it in both ears. You might even leave with a whole different perspective on a town that you never heard of.

Expected to kill 90 minutes and probably not even finish watching 'Cedar Rapids', BUT Ed Helms led the highly capable ensemble cast of John Reilly, Signory Weaver, Isiah Whitlock, and Anne Heche down the rabbit hole to his world of dweeb awkwardness, and the result is a satisfyingly sweet little guy wins comedy. Well written and paced. Recommended viewing when you think there is no comedy you haven't seen before that would be a deemed worthy of your time. Earns my Two Diamond Award for being such a nice surprise. 💠💠

OK, so I seen this film on IMDb with quite a good rating and wanted to know what the fuss was about so, I proceeded to purchase and watch the movie, I have to tell you I put it on expecting it to be terrible, and for the first 10 minutes I did find it pretty boring with jokes that just didn't really make the cut but believe me people once the real storyline kicks in, this movie can be pretty hilarious in places, with characters that EVERYBODY will love, I have seriously not seen a movie in a long time where I felt as if I liked the characters this much, overall its a short laugh riot, which really does deserve the rating it gets online, its only on for around 1hour and 20 minutes, and the jokes come every 1 - 2 minutes so you should be entertained throughout the whole movie.

Cedar Rapids definitely provides some good laughs, but don't expect to be laughing throughout. And as with so many recent movies, if you've seen the previews, you've seen about half of the punchlines, anyway. As a former Iowan, I was disappointed that the movie didn't really capture much of the vibe of the state, in my opinion. It might as well have been filmed just about anywhere in the Midwest, with the corresponding title change. Ed Helms is decent, but he lacks the active style of humor that he brings to The Office. In this movie, it's not so much that he himself is funny as it is that the things that go on around his childlike character are amusing. His Midwestern dialog comes off flatter than I would like, as compared to, say, Fargo, Juno, or Napolean Dynamite, in which the quirkiness of Midwestern dialog really shines through. But my biggest complaint about the movie is it's cynical morality. By the end, most of the outwardly good people turn out to be jerks, and most of the outwardly amoral people are the good guys. Big surprise. And most of the morally questionable stuff that happens in the meantime turns out to have no real consequence whatsoever; it just happens, we have a few laughs, and then life goes on. Only the main character ever seems to be at all morally conflicted about his decisions, everyone else just does what they do. I'm not saying that movies need to have a message, it's just that this one bypasses any profound moral complexity for its banal approach of simple, inverted morality. Anyway, I saw the movie because I thought it would be cool to see a movie set in Iowa. If you don't have a similar reason to see it, you won't be missing much if wait to catch it on video--or not at all.

Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) is a goody insurance agent who's goal in life is to actually help people. His companion, Roger, is successful and won the insurance award three times. Tim, in hope of getting an award himself, took Roger's spot after Roger died to go to the convention in Cedar Rapids. What happens at Cedar Rapids stays in Cedar Rapids? Well, Tim sure hoped so, because what Tim did, it was like The Hangover version but subtract Zach Galifinakis. Ed Helms plays an emotional guy who had never been out of state and is afraid to use his credit card. And he does it well, considering his role in The Office is quite similar. But the stand-out in this film is how John C. Reilly is a playboy who always talk about girls. Although he doesn't get any, but he's hilarious. The film was helped by the smart writing that made the film almost as funny as The Hangover. Suceeded at the Sundance, Cedar Rapids had made its way into my list of Best Comedy of the Year.

Ed Helms (The Office, Hangover) -- your star vehicle has come in. No doubt some may feel he is channeling Ben Stiller but Helms' Tim Lippe is very much his own creation here – the very personification of "white bread" forced to live in a world of confidently aggressive women, gay weddings, a hooker with a heart and ... you'll find out. Kudos to Phil Johnston's screenplay and the perfectly cast supporting players: Sigourney Weaver as Tim's motherly cougar, John C. Reilly as the polar-opposite cohort who forms the nucleus of the comedy, Isiah Whitlock Jr.'s dead on adoption of Family Guy's Cleveland that sets up a ROFL moment in the climax, Anne Heche's melding of Donna Reed and Shirley MacLaine of this rabid "rat pack" cast … and industry go-to-actor Kurtwood Smith as "borin' Orin", the revered "Mr. President" and judge of the prized 2-Diamond Award, the insurance industry's most hallowed trophy. This is the very definition of an ensemble gem, Helms the straight-man core to the spokes in the wheel … a wheel that begins to turn slowly, setting the stage and tone … before all Midwest, cliché shenanigans breaks loose and it careens into hysterical, bathroom slapstick and pies in the face. A little bit "40 Year Old Virgin," a little bit "Groundhog Day" and whole lot of love.

This is a purely nice and even heartwarming comedy. Sure, most the characters are one dimensional presentations but somehow the movie connects just enough to make it worth while. There are no real side splitting laughs. In fact, I would barely call this a comedy at all if not for the efforts of John C. Reilly. He absolutely steals the show. His work may not be classified as side splitting but it comes really really close. We've all seen it before but not without Will Ferrell to partner up with and bounce ideas off. Reilly proves he needs no one else to be funny. Still, this is a human interest story plain and very simple. Note: Anne Heche has still got it and was MILFing up the screen at every turn. What a wonderful woman.

Cedar Rapids is 2011's second overlooked comedy gem, with the first being the retro throwback Take Me Home Tonight. This is a subtle, funny, witty, and different film that has innocent characters, with one thing in common - their job. These characters could very well be America's second wolfpack. I always wonder what would happen if these type of films, underrated comedies, got the same attention and recognition films like The Hangover and Pineapple Express got. Would we hear more quotes and references from these films? Would America have a different taste in humor? Would Cedar Rapids set the bar for newer comedies? It's all "would's" and "what if's." The plot: Naive insurance salesman Tim Lippe (Helms) is what some may call a "loser." He lives a quiet life, isn't the most social person, and sleeps with his old fourth grade teacher (Weaver). Tim has to attend an insurance convention in Cedar Rapids, and this will be the first time he has flown or stayed in a hotel. He believes everyone will be as nice as back home, but in fact, everyone is different and the real-world will bite Tim in the rear. Tim stays in a suite with three people;. He meets soft-spoken, quiet-man Ronald Wilkes (Whitlock Jr.). Loud-mouth, party animal Dean Ziegler (Reilly). And married, but sweet Joan (Heche). This group of new-friends are all after one thing; an award that the manager of the convention, (Smith), will give to one representative of their company. This is one of those rare occasions where the characters are so sweet, so innocent, and so well-developed I want to just hug them. Each character is likable in their own way. Even Ziegler, who is not a victim of his simpleton self or his own stupidity like Alan from The Hangover, is a very serious and loving guy despite his hard-partying self. Certain films, once again referring back to The Hangover, rely on antics to carry the comedy which is perfectly fine with me. But when the antics play like a "how-far-can-we-go-type-of-comedy" the result becomes a repetitive and unenjoyable comedy. Cedar Rapids has antics, but not antics just for the purpose of a cheap, gross-out laugh and that's what makes this gem stand out. If 2011 doesn't offer any more hilarious comedies, which I highly doubt, The Art of Getting By, Bridesmaids, Cedar Rapids, Hall Pass, and Take Me Home Tonight proudly make 2011 one funny year. Starring: Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Kurtwood Smith, Stephen Root, Mike O'Malley, Sigourney Weaver , and Alia Shawkat. Directed by: Miguel Arteta.