The Interview: Should you watch it?

Sky Movies Premiere: PREMIERE Friday 2 October, 3.45pm and 8pm

James Franco as Dave Skylark, a TV talk show presenter who coaxes headline admissions from his celebrity guests. Rob Lowe’s bald! Eminem’s gay! “It’s like Spike Lee just said he’s white!” says a soundbooth technician. Franco claims it’s the first rule of journalism: you give the people want they want. “I think that’s circuses and demolition derbies,” says his producer, Seth Rogen.

These two bozos now face their greatest challenge: interviewing North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang. It will not go smoothly. The CIA makes sure of that. Sony’s intentionally crude comedy became an unlikely international incident when North Korea threatened to attack the US if the picture was released.

Although quite why a crass cross between Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator and Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder would rate such a disproportionate response is one for Team America to discuss. As a comedy it’s mildly diverting, hardly as wild and crazily subversive as the cultural learnings of Cohen’s Borat.

Randall Park’s an amusingly starstruck ‘supreme leader’ and Rogen’s relatively restrained. Playing the dummy Maxwell Smart surrogate, nudge-and-wink Franco mugs frantically like he’s taking over the rudest Road movie Bob Hope and Bing Crosby never made. When it comes to comedy, Franco’s clueless.

Certificate: 15

Duration: 112min

IMDB – The Interview

TMDB – The Interview

Rotten Tomatoes – The Interview