Cedar Rapids 01/17 Blu-ray (Rental)

Product Description The funniest business trip of all time gets even crazier with the Super-Awesome Edition of Cedar Rapids — more hysterical footage, more outrageous shenanigans and more two-diamond fun! Ed Helms (The Hangover 1 & 2) and John C. Reilly (Step Brothers) lead an all-star cast in the comedy that shows what can happen...when insurance agents go wild! Shy and naive Tim Lippe (Helms) ventures to the “big city” of Cedar Rapids for a convention and ends up crossing paths with the ultimate party animal (Reilly). Before long, Tim is crashing parties, skinny-dipping in the hotel pool and being seduced by a sexy soccer mom. And if Tim can survive the weekend, he might just change his life forever! Amazon.com When a naive, small-town insurance agent named Tim Lippe (Ed Helms, The Hangover) goes to a convention in the big city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, his life gets turned inside out under the influence of three convention veterans. This sort of fish-out-of-water comedy could have been a flimsy excuse for broad slapstick and absurd high jinks; instead, in the confident hands of director Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl, Chuck & Buck), Cedar Rapids becomes something more humane and, in a quiet way, more ambitious. Helms manages to make Tim genuine, a man-child but not a cartoon; the movie's situations skirt wackiness, yet always remain in the realm of something emotionally real. (The movie also reflects the influence of producers Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, who created the similarly character-rich movies Sideways, Almost Schmidt, and Election.) The whole cast hits the right notes, from such familiar faces as John C. Reilly (Magnolia, Talladega Nights), Anne Heche, and Sigourney Weaver to such stealthy character actors as Stephen Root (NewsRadio), Rob Corddry (Hot Tub Time Machine), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (The Wire), and Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development). Cedar Rapids is sweet without being cloying, funny without being manic, and even a little sad at times, without ever turning up the violins on the soundtrack. It's an honest movie, and there are all too few of them out there. --Bret Fetzer