Role Models

Danny and Wheeler are salesmen for an energy drink company who spend their days pitching the product to unimpressed students. After a rough day ends with them wrecking the company truck, they are arrested and brought before a judge who offers a choice: jail time or 150 hours of community service in a mentoring program. They pick the mentoring, and quickly discover they may have made the wrong call. Danny is paired with Augie, a shy teenager absorbed in medieval live-action role-playing, while Wheeler is assigned Ronnie, a foul-mouthed fifth-grader. The program is run by Gayle Sweeny, a former addict with firm ideas about how her volunteers should behave, and both men find their immaturity poorly suited to looking after children.

David Wain directed the film, his third feature, following Wet Hot American Summer and The Ten. He wrote the screenplay with Paul Rudd and Ken Marino. Rudd stars as Danny alongside Seann William Scott as Wheeler, with Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb'e J. Thompson, Elizabeth Banks and Jane Lynch in supporting roles. It was produced by Scott Stuber, Luke Greenfield and Mary Parent.

Made for roughly 28 million dollars, the film took in about 92 million worldwide, a solid return on its budget. It holds a TMDB score of 6.5 from over two thousand votes, and critics' ratings sit at the same 6.5 average across 163 reviews, so audiences and reviewers judged it similarly.