Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Two guys who couldn’t have more different personalities are best friends. Then they get fired from their job because the lazy one is lazy. Then they spend the rest of the movie fighting and eventually getting back together to try and get their jobs back. Yeah…not exactly a brand new story. But it is different enough to be entertaining.
Of course the main joke throughout the movie is that instead of being “guys” they are Easter bunnies. Not guys dressed up in bunny costumes, actual Easter bunnies. Now, naturally, this greatly appeals to me since in many locations including this site’s forums, my avatar is a frog wearing a bunny suit. However, it’s still a hard concept to buy into. There’s nothing they could have really done to make it any more clear, they don’t take the suits off for the bathroom or for sexual relationships, but just the fact that it’s guys in bunny suits makes you think, guy in bunny suit, not Easter bunny.
While Hank and Mike are the stars and funny and good in their own right, the movie really gets taken over by the two big names in the cast. Joe Mantegna and Chris Klein. Mantegna is the owner/president/big wig of the company Easter Inc. who actually fires Hank and Mike and yet remains a good guy in the movie because of how well Klein plays the dirty, sleazy, corporate pitch man. We’re used to seeing Klein in his jock ways from American Pie and to see him reach into a different area and succeed is good for him. The best scene is the movie is arguably the scene where Klein is singing the demented love song “It Happens in Florida” in the bar.
My problems with Hank and Mike are pretty minimal, besides the whole creative thing. The way they have the ending edited makes it slightly confusing and you don’t really know how or why it happened. It’s explained and shown in the extras, but I think the other ending would have worked better. The entire ending sequence is apparently an unplanned rip off of the Robocop ending. I don’t know, I haven’t seen Robocop but in the commentary on this movie, during the final scene they talk about how they just found out they copied the ending.
Some of the jokes fall flat. Not many, but there aren’t really any that amazing either. The funniest line is Hank’s line in the coffee shop about fighting the coffee kid. That one has the potential to have mass appeal, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Hank and Mike is presented in 1.85:1 Widescreen format and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound.
A Theatrical Trailer for the movie.
A 56-minute behind the scenes look at the movie. This BTS feature May be better than the actual movie.
A five-minute look at the evolution of the movie.
A feature commentary with Thomas Michael, Paolo Mancini, and Matthew Klinck
A 15 minute short film the characters did years ago.
11 minutes of deleted scenes. Some would have made the movie better, but overall it’s easy to see why they got cut.
8 Minutes of extended scenes. Some are very funny.
3 Minutes of bloopers.
7 Minutes of footage from auditions.
There’s also a photo gallery and alternate posters for the movie. There’s also apparently 12 “Easter Eggs” hiding in the menu’s somewhere. So far I’ve only found one.
Overall Hank and Mike is a pretty good movie. It’s not new but still manages to not feel stale. You’ll probably laugh a time or two, crying probably isn’t an option but you’ll feel for the characters when they do something stupid. You can do better if you look hard enough, but this isn’t the worst option in the bin either. Definitely worthy of a Netflix at the least.
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Shoreline Entertainment Presents Hank and Mike. Directed by Matthew Klink. Starring Thomas Michael, Paolo Mancini, Chris Klein, and Joe Mantegna. Written by Paolo Mancini and Thomas Michael. Running time: 86 minutes. Rated R. Released on DVD: October 28th, 2008. Available at Amazon.com.
