Film Review: Sausage Party

Bums, Not Bombs

It’s all too often (and unfortunately ever increasingly the case) that the trailer(s) released to promote a movie will probably and unnecessarily have the best moments in it, if at not at the very least the ENTIRE plot and a shot of the final moment showing who survives the proceeding screen adventure(less).

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Obviously guided by money possessed evil marketing department who are generally devoid of any belief in their product or ability to be clever/creative, they all just want their bonus fix at the end of each quarter. Yes it’s best that people recoup their investments, but how about more folk make better products, or as in this movies case make a BRILLIANT product and make the best bits absolutely impossible to put in the trailer as they are off the planet INSANE. Rising to this premise and occasion like a youthful eager morning glory we have ‘Sausage Party’ (2016) directed by Greg Tiernan, Conrad Vernon and written by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and Jonah Hill, who if you are aware of their previous written fare will have an idea of where they get their inspirations from, basically being stoned at the local supermarket.

So to get a few things out of the way and possibly save you some time, this has to be one of the most wonderfully divisive movies I’m seen in a long time. Being a comedy, which in itself is clannish in regards taste. I pretty much deplore any main stream ‘comedians’ that are regulars on tv, I’ll not name them as they just aren’t my taste. Whereas I do love stuff such as the Rubber Bandits and Anthony Jeselnik, weird, wonderful, wrong, intelligent and dark. They are not just testing or crossing boundaries, but go comedy Matrix on joke’s arse in that ‘there are no boundaries’. or spoons for that matter, unless they are up that arse. They recognise within the multidimensional parameters of the comedy raindow there are many colours, and the only rule is there are no rules. What they deal with is preconceptions that we are ALL indoctrinated with, and merrily crucify them. On that premise, ‘Sausage Party’ ticked every box possible for my warped/surreal comedic taste buds, but alot of folk will hate it, and you can pretty much take it that the haters are members of organised religion, which MASSIVELY gets egg all over its face in this movie. Well egg and copious amounts other bodily fluids… and rightfully so.

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Each day the dawn/corn chorus rings out across the aisles of Shopwell’s, at the excitement of the day ahead where all the products and goods literally sing/pray to be chosen by the gods (humans) and brought to the promised land (whatever that may be). Their days are guided/controlled by rituals to appease and please said gods. There’s loads of different beliefs too depending on the particular groups of vegetables or cleaning products, but as these beliefs bring solace, they also bring clear, hostile division and divine ignorance. If for any particular reason you’ve not been chosen, well clearly you are inadequate, and there’s something wrong with you. This world is our world.

These belief systems are generally never questioned as there’s no real reason too, there’s nothing to contradict the daily indoctrination, call to consume. That is until word somehow gets back to the shelves and the super shiny promotional stickers begin to fall off exposing the cracks of chaos in their controlled environment. With this new found hint at the truth they muster up the best team possible to search out the answers, step up hotdog Frank (Seth Rogan), hotdog bun Brenda Bunson (Kristen Wiig), flat bread Kareem Abdul Lavash (David Krumholtz), bagel Sammy Bagel Jr. (Edward Norton) and taco (bomb)shell Teresa del Taco (Salma Hayek), effectively the A(isle) Team.

Everything so far seems pretty much straight forward being that I’ve not mentioned the swearing basically in every sentence (that’s another comedy box ticked), bumming jokes (every second sentence) which is somewhat inspired by the main protagonist and all round evil product Douche (Nick Kroll) who is the liquid squirting feminine hygiene product of the same name, and the fact that no race, gender, creed, demographic or nation is left unsullied in this missadventure, which is wonderfully refreshing to see in an ever increasing myopically and homogenised pc world. But it isn’t offence to cause offence, it is to raise awareness of the stupid irrelevant things that we chose to get offended from.

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Through the giddy puerile glee of jokes some might deem rude/offensive, they are talking about subjects such as consumerism, wars, genders, existentialism, organised religions and folk basically living entire lives that are lies. Of course you don’t have to pay attention to that if you don’t want too, guaranteed there’s another joke playing with itself just cuming the corner.

This is no low effort piece of creativity either. The animation is fantastic, looking and sounding amazing. The hit rate of jokes is phenomenal both in frequency, quality and ever increasing outrageousness. There are plenty of stunningly creative set pieces, with tons of background visual jokes that immediately warrant multiple viewings (I’ll be pre-ordering the blu-ray straight away), and it has some of the best comedy quotes of recent times.

Oh and did I mention the swearing? I’m fairly sure it’s the most swearing I’ve ever heard in a movie, it’s like Ralph Fiennes character in ‘In Bruges’ on an infinite loop, ticking yet another comedy box and clearly making this movie an essential part of my five a day if not the answer to ALL the problems of the world, though the solutions many initially seem quirky to say the least, and they may leave you walking strangely for a few days. But one man’s war is another man’s misplaced desires.

And then there’s the ending… OH MY GAWD THE ENDING!!!!!!??????

10/10

‘Sausage Party’ is out now.

For more film reviews visit www.flushthefashion.com/film

Steve Clarke

Born in Celtic lands, nurtured in art college, trained by the BBC, inspired by Hunter S. Thompson and released onto the battlefront of all things interesting/inspiring/good vibes... people, movies, music, clubbing, revolution, gigs, festivals, books, art, theatre, painting and trying to find letters on keyboards in the name of flushthefashion. Making sure it's not quite on the western front... and beyond.

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