Butter is a political satire directed by Jim Field Smith. Smith last directed my ultimate guilty pleasure comedy She's Out Of My League. Unlike the latter-his new comedy manages to waste an all too great cast. This is not to say that Butter is a bad movie. I am simply pointing out that the film manages to fall under the weight of its own cleverness.
The film stars Jennifer Garner and Ty Burrell as Laura and Bob Picker-a seemingly happily married couple. The key word there is seemingly. While on the surface they look like they have a good marriage...Bob is seeing a stripper named Brooke (Olivia Wilde), Laura is driving Bob crazy with her butter carving and their daughter Kaitlen (Ashley Greene) hates them both. Another plot involves Destiny (Yara Shahidi)-a young girl who has flip-flopped from house to house all her life. She gets two new parents (Rob Corddry and Alicia Silverstone) who support her skeptically in her ambitions to win the butter carving competition.
These are talented people I have mentioned including Shahidi who is going to be huge one day. However, they are given nothing to do. Sure-the film is cleverly written but by being that way it seems to go for the goofball moments too many times. By this I mean it tries to be clever and wacky and ends up not being much of either. This can be seen especially with a dreadfully misguided cameo with Hugh Jackman as a sleazy car salesman. There are too many scenes where first time writer Jason A. Micallef appears to think he is so clever that there is nothing else to do. The political backbone of the story is just there for the upcoming election season. I feel that the film would have been funnier if it did not try so hard. If Micallef wants to be a writer he needs to learn that a screenplay need not try hard-if it is good it is good and vice versa.
There are a few funny moments in Butter but they are dragged down by the lack of energy. This director and these performers can do wonderful things with a script. She's Out Of My League did not have a very good script but Smith managed to make it work. As well-Burrell, Garner, Corddry, Silverstone, Jackman and Wilde have all had much experience in Hollywood and have proved they can act their way out of a bad script. However, here they seem to be lethargic in the way they present themselves. I will just say that it was a bad day for them and be done with it.
(2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for language and sexual content)
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