Peter Farrelly’s RICKY STANICKY is an R-Rated, penis-joke filled bro comedy about three childhood friends who invented a fictional friend to take the blame for a prank gone wrong. Really wrong – they set the guy’s house on fire. Kids might make up something like that to dodge responsibility, but adults buying into the idea that someone named “Ricky Stanicky” is at fault is much more of a stretch.
Yet these three pals use this made-up friend to take the blame all through their childhoods, but then director Peter Farrelly (and the script’s six writers) go further, and have the grown-up friends continue using the fictional Ricky Stanicky as someone to blame into adulthood.
OK, it’s comedy, and disbelief gets suspended, but this silly premise really gets a work out. The real question here is: is it funny? Well, sometimes (largely thanks to John Cena and William H. Macy) but usually not. It’s better than the last Peter Farrelly-Zac Efron collaboration, THE GREATEST BEER RUN EVER, but it’s a long way from THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY.
Over the years, Dean (Zac Efron), JT (Andrew Santino) and Wes (Jermaine Fowler), the three Rhode Island-based friends, have figured out a whole routine to let them use Ricky Stanicky as an excuse to get out of things, and take off on guys-only trips. When they get last-minute tickets to see a favorite band in Atlantic City, it is time for “Ricky” to call and say he’s in the hospital in Albany, with a return of his cancer. Of course, they have to go see their dear friend, even if it means JT has to miss the baby shower for his pregnant wife Susan (Anja Savcic).
Ricky, of course, is actually Wes, calling on their special “Ricky Stanicky” phone. A lot of work has gone into this scam over the years, and the pals have a whole book of details, which they call “the bible” on Ricky Stanicky so they can keep everything straight. They have routines to prevent discovery and tracking, including switching off their phones before they head to the airport and fly off to Atlantic City.
Once in Atlantic City, the R-Rated part really comes out. The three pals go to a casino bar after the concert, where a drunken local attaches himself to them. They buy him a drink and a meal, and the drunken fellow, Rod Rockhard (John Cena). tells them he is a “trained actor” who is great at doing impressions but right now, he is working at a club where he impersonates various rock stars and sings their famous songs with raunchy new lyrics about masturbation. And we get a little sampling of those squirm-worthy performances, with Cena dressed as Devo, Alice Cooper and more, as he singing their hits with new masturbation-theme lyrics. Eventually, the three friends chase off the inebriated Rod off to continue their evening but Rod still manages to give Dean his business card.
Since their phones are switched off, no one can reach them tell them JT’s wife goes into labor early, but Dean discovers that when he switches on his phone to take a quick photo. The guys rush back but it’s too late for the birth. JT now faces his angry, suspicious mother-in-law, who called every hospital in Albany and found no Ricky Stanicky in any of them. Wes is ready to just tell the truth, and starts to do that, but Dean quickly comes up with a story. But now they will have to produce a real Ricky Stanicky. Calling “trained actor” Rod sounds like the perfect solution.
We’ve all seen this story before – well, farce stories like this. There is the one about the friend who isn’t real that requires ever-more inventive lies, and the one about the person pressed into service to pretend to be someone else – and who turns out to be incredibly good at it. Not much to surprise.
John Cena’s Rod arrives hung over and late to play his part as Ricky Stanicky, but he tells them he is now sober – as of three days ago. A quick shower at Wes’ apartment, which he shares with his boyfriend Keith (Daniel Monks), helps clean Rod up, before “Ricky Stanicky” makes his debut at a party for JT’s baby’s bris, the Jewish circumcision ritual (and an opportunity for more of the movie’s penis jokes). To the three friends’ surprise, Ricky is a big hit, thanks to actor Rod’s research, and he even impresses Dean’s and JT’s boss Ted Summerhayes (William H. Macy). Ricky’s so likable that the crowd doesn’t want him to leave – which leads to the next round of problems.
The plot is far-fetched, to say the least. Like any typical Farrelly comedy, you know the story will have a human heart under all that R-Rated humor, sure to please the inner 13-year-old boy. The best parts of the film are John Cena and William H. Macy. Actually, John Cena looks like he is having a blast and brings a certain goofy charm to his role as Rod/Ricky. Cena is in fine dumb-guy form, as he transforms the drunken guy who does masturbation jokes into a serious actor fully-prepared for his part, having deeply researched every aspect of his fictional character, thanks to the three friends’ extensive “Ricky Stanicky” bible. Cena’s character is sometimes dumb as the proverbial box of rocks but then pivots to rattle off complex factoids memorized from his extensive research, a switch that is rather fun to watch if hard to believe. Cena delivers most of the actual laughs in this messy comedy.
Unsurprisingly, William H. Macy is marvelous, as always, and gives us the second-most laughs, as the boss who starts out a confident, humorless stuffed shirt but then reveals he is secretly more unsure and worried about the possible merger of his East Coast investment firm with a more modern San Francisco firm.
There are three friends but it’s really all about Zac Efron’s character Dean. Andrew Santino’s JT and Jermaine Fowler’s Wes remain underdeveloped ciphers based on being Jewish or Black, respectively. Fowler’s Wes gets a touch more detail for his character, as Wes is gay as well, and someone still finding his purpose in life, with a boyfriend who is getting tired of supporting him, but it is still shallow waters. Santino’s JT is all histrionics, family drama, and his mean mother-in-law. The women in this story are also barely sketched out, although Dean’s girlfriend Erin (Lex Scott Davis) get a bit more, as a sharp TV journalist trying to break out of covering “happy talk” news – like a goose on a golf course trying to incubate a golf ball.
In typical Farrelly comedy style, there is plenty of dumb, rude, guy-style humor but in the end, there is a message about human values. However, apart from John Cena and William H Macy, there is little reason to see RICKY STANICKY unless you are a very determined Farrelly fan.
RICKY STANICKY debuts streaming on Prime Video on Thursday, Mar. 8
RATING: 1 out of 4 stars
