By all accounts, a movie like Ricky Stanicky shouldn’t work. But, for some reason, it does. The cast includes Zac Efron, who’s hot off the phenomenally dramatic The Iron Claw, Jermaine Fowler, best known for starring in Coming 2 America, Andrew Santino, who’s podcast Bad Friends has been blowing up on social media, and John Cena, who’s been hot since his WWE debut in 2001. It’s an unlikely group who work surprisingly well together, especially in a comedy setting.
The film follows the story of three childhood best friends, Dean, Wes and JT (Efron, Fowler and Santino), who invent a made-up best friend named Ricky Stanicky as children to get out of some serious trouble at Halloween. Cut to 20 years later and the trio still use Stanicky as an alibi to get out of any responsibility in their adult life, including getting out of JT’s Wife’s baby shower.
They head to Atlantic City they come upon lowly Rock-Hard Rod. Rod (Cena) is a degenerate, alcoholic, wannabe actor and swindler who wins over Dean with his stories. When JT’s wife goes into early labor, they speed back home, where the family insists on the mysterious Stanicky join them for the baby’s bris celebration. They then hire Rod to become Stanicky and manifest the made-up friend they had their entire lives, so their lies go undetected.
Given all of the tropes a movie like Ricky Stanicky possesses, I still found myself mysteriously entranced by it. Then, I realized it was because of two distinct aspects. One – John Cena is effortlessly hilarious. His commitment to the bit is unrivaled. While Dave Bautista may be the best wrestler-turned-dramatic-actor we have in Hollywood, Cena may be the best wrestler-turned-comedic actor.
But, more importantly, it dawned on me how perfect a parody Ricky Stanicky is of the Mary Sue/Gary Stu film trope. Stanicky, the character, should never have existed. Yet here is someone who, no matter what our “protagonists” do, he rises above in the most unlikely situations. From perfectly angling a multi-million-dollar finance organization to the future to talking his way out of even the most skeptical of the Stanicky lie and even more. The character (and, by extension, the film) flips the trope on its head and makes fun of it while it hangs upside down. It’s an incredibly smart tactic that you don’t see on the surface level.
That’s not to say the film is without its faults too. Sometimes, it really plays too much into the wacky, absurd comedy situations that many in the genre fall victim to. It’s fairly beat by beat predictable. And it underwhelms in moments where Cena is not on screen. Is that enough for me to hate the movie? Absolutely not. Am I going to be running to see it again? Probably not either. But when I’m hanging out with some friends, having some drinks and looking for something funny to laugh at, Ricky Stanicky may just be at the top of my list.
Final Thoughts
Ricky Stanicky is the perfect party movie. It’s entertaining and unique enough to be a classic rewatch in that sort of setting. But, in any other scenario, it’s probably not the movie to put on. That said, John Cena is incredibly funny, and he carries the film on his back. It’s worth seeing once just for him.
