The newest buddy comedy to hit the big screen, Role Models asks the question: What would happen if Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott were Big Brothers? As you might expect, their 30-something characters Danny (Rudd) and Wheeler (Scott) aren't exactly the most mature adults out there. The events leading up to their court-ordered mentorship do involve a drug-advocating nervous breakdown in front of grade-school students, an assault on police officers, and a truck outfitted like a Minotaur on top of a statue. As Danny says, "I've got nothing to give a kid." But as both men reluctantly and then not-so-reluctantly spend time with their mentees Augee (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and Ronnie (Bobb'e J. Thompson), what they find is that they actually do.

Although both Danny and Wheeler are in their thirties, Role Models is essentially a coming-of-age story. If Danny and Wheeler were children, Wheeler would be the hyperactive child too busy running after one shiny object after another to ever take hold of anything of substance, and Danny would be the picky eater who only plays with the smart kids and would rather sit alone in his room than waste his time on anything stupid. While Wheeler gets excited about pretty much everything, Danny takes joy in nothing. And between the two of them, although there are lives of value out there, neither of them seems to be quite able to grasp them.

Enter their mentees. As the movies trailer tells us, "It will take a couple of boys to make them men." And so the story of Danny, Wheeler, Augee, and Ronnie unfolds. For Wheeler, becoming a man is actually not so much about recognizing what is of value in life, but in not continually being distracted by what is of lesser value. "You know what's great about this job, we're making this world a better place," he tells Danny at the beginning of the movie. Sure, he may smoke pot immediately following his anti-drug presentations, his love of his job may revolve more around getting free energy drinks than anything else, but somewhere inside of him he actually does recognize that teaching kids to stay off drugs is a good way to spend his time.

In the character of Sturdy Wings' former crack-addict founder (Jane Lynch), the difference between life's temporary fixes and those things that can actually sustain and fulfill us is pretty much hit over the head every time she appears on screen. She used to be addicted to crack, now she's addicted to making kids' lives better. Hmmmm, I wonder which is better? Cue Wheeler's own wake-up call when his own crack (casual sex with women) causes him to neglect his mentorship of Robbie. Although Wheeler may not exactly have the most mature wisdom to impart to Ronnie, what he does have to give him is friendship and attention. And when he sees how much a relationship that is about more than just his own temporary pleasure can mean to someone else, it is as if he finally makes the connection between what he knows will make the world a better place and how he lives. For Danny and Augee, however, their friendship takes a slightly different and, if I may say so, more touching course. As Danny sees it, there's nothing in his life worth living for. He's gotten nowhere in his career. His girlfriend of many years (Elizabeth Banks) just left him. And since the only world he sees around him is filled with nothing more than goofy product names, artificial energy drinks, and cheesy movie lines, he pretty much sees no point in joining it.

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