The Interview (2014)

If there is one thing The Interview will be remembered for it will be it controversy surround the movie and not the movie itself. During the past few weeks it was reported that Sony had been hacked by a group calling themselves “Guardians of Peace”. They stole a big amount of business sensitive data. This resulted in various movies hitting the internet before their release in cinemas and both internal mails and personal details being published. Threats followed, saying that cinemas showing The Interview could face events that would remember people of 9/11. The hackers group allegedly had ties with North Korea and as the movie is about killing its leader, Kim Jung Un, it would be the reason for the hack.

Initially Sony caved into the demands and issued a statement that the movie wouldn’t be released anymore after all the big American chains pulled out of showing it. Even president Obama responded and said not showing the film wasn’t a wise choice. On Christmas evening though Sony announced that the movie would be available immediately on various VOD platforms like Youtube, Google Play en Xbox. It’s a unique situation that such a “big” movie is offered in such a way to the consumer. The next couple of weeks will show if this strategy has meant financial success for Sony. If that is the case it could open the doors to other studios releasing their movies in this way as well. It would finally give the choice to the consumer to watch the movie at home immediately or head to the cinema. But back to The Interview. Has the controversy about it been valid?

Dave Skylark (James Franco) is a very successful TV-host who is known for doing TMZ-style interviews. The movie shows a couple of them including Eminem, Rob Lowe and Jason Gordon-Levitt. He has been working with his friend and producer Aaron Rapaport (Seth Rogen) for years. When Dave Skylark hears that Kim Jung Un is a big fan of his show he sees an opportunity to interview him, which would open the door to interviews with other politicians. But as Kim Jung Un has gained the possibility to hit the west coast of the United States with missiles, Skylark and Rapaport are approached by a security agency with the request to assassinate Un. They agree and head over to North Korea to do the interview and complete their mission.

Despite the setup for this movie, this is a comedy and if you have seen Rogen and Franco in comedies before you know what to expect from them, which means a lot of raunchy humour and The Interview is no different. I laughed quite a bit during the first half of the movie, before they travel to North Korea. Once they are there and get to know Kim Jung Un it starts to get a bit much and I had very mixed feelings about it. Of course it should be possible to make fun of anything (Team America did so with Kim Jung Il or Four Lions made fun of terrorism), but here I got the feeling they were going a bit too far sometimes. There is a fine line between satire and just doing something ridiculous and they did the latter. If you enjoy Rogen’s humour you will probably enjoy The Interview. If not then it is probably better to stay away from it, unless you want to see what caused North Korea (allegedly) to “attack” Sony.