Cinephiles last year could not stop gushing about Zac Efron in The Iron Claw, but he’s apparently coming back to the same raunchy comedy genre as Neighbors, and he’s working with an actual pro-wrestler this time.
Check out the trailer for Ricky Stanicky:
When three childhood best friends pull a prank gone wrong, they invent the imaginary Ricky Stanicky to get them out of trouble! Twenty years after creating this ‘friend,’ Dean, JT, and Wes (Zac Efron, Andrew Santino, and Jermaine Fowler) still use the nonexistent Ricky as a handy alibi for their immature behavior.
When their spouses and partners get suspicious and demand to finally meet the fabled Mr. Stanicky, the guilty trio decide to hire washed-up actor and raunchy celebrity impersonator “Rock Hard” Rod (John Cena) to bring him to life. But when Rod takes his role of a lifetime too far, they begin to wish they’d never invented Ricky in the first place.
The movie is directed by Peter Farrelly who is best known for being part of the directing duo of the Farrelly Brothers, but has recently been branching out to do more serious films like Green Book. As it turns out, he also directed The Greatest Beer Run Ever for Apple TV+, which also starred Efron, ad it’s likely it was that connection that also got Efron to commit to this project.
Thanks to Peacemaker, we already know that Cena can hold his own when it comes to raunchy comedies, and Efron is backed up with some solid comedians in the form of Andrew Santino and Jermaine Fowler.
Just based on what we see in the trailer, Ricky Stanicky looks like some good, raunchy fun; and it should be a nice break from the more serious films we’ve been getting lately like Dream Scenario or Poor Things.
Catch Ricky Stanicky when the movie hits Amazon Prime Video on March 7.
