Butler's Cinema Scene

John Cena, Leslie Mann, Ike Barinholtz

“BLOCKERS” My rating: C+

102 minutes | MPAA rating: R

A bit of Apatow lite with a heavy load of raunch, “Blockers” mixes parental paranoia and adolescent randiness.  Despite a few flat passages, it mostly works…which is to say it’ll make you laugh even if you’re ashamed to.

This feature directing debut from veteran comedy writer/producer Kay Cannon (the “Pitch Perfect” franchise, “30 Rock,” “New Girl”) centers on a trio of hovering parents who discover that their three adored daughters have signed a pact to lose their virginity on prom night.

The film’s title (the script is by Brian and Jim Kehoe) is short for “cock blockers,” and that bit of information says a good deal about the sort of lurid laughs audiences can expect.

Mitchell (John Cena), Lisa (Leslie Mann) and Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) meet while dropping their daughters off for the first day of  elementary school.  The little girls bond almost immediately.

More than a decade later the three young ladies are facing high school graduation as virgins…and decide to do something about it. When the parental units intercept texts and emails detailing the planned deflorations, the oldsters go into full anxious mode and set out to prevent any such sexual encounters.

Gideon Arlon, Kathryn Newton, Geraldine Viswanathan

Along the way they behave nearly as badly as the horny high schoolers they’re pursuing. (This is a film that dishes projectile vomiting in the back of a limo and a bout of butt-chugging…i.e., a cheap beer enema.)

Lisa is a clingy single mom frantic with the knowledge that her daughter Julie (Kathryn Newton) will be going off to college.

The musclebound Mitchell is an emotional basket case who, when faced with even the slightest shred of sentimentality involving daughter Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan), breaks down in tears.

Hunter is a boozy Peter Pan who for years has been out of the life of daughter Sam (Gideon Arlon) and is now trying to make up for it by leasing a limo for the girls’ big night out.

Some of the rude wordplay works quite nicely.  And the screenplay is all about ethnic and sexual inclusiveness — two of the families are racially mixed and one of the girls is a closeted lesbian.

On the downside, director Cannon’s attempts to stage slapstick are pretty weak.

| Robert W. Butler