'Big Bang' star Rauch raunchy in racy 'Bronze' comedy
“Big Bang Theory” sitcom star Melissa Rauch stretches her acting range as well as her salubrious TV image way, way, way into R-rated territory during the gross-out, caustic comedy “The Bronze.”
In 1977, “Welcome Back Kotter” sitcom star John Travolta came under heavy criticism from the public for stepping out of his beloved Sweathogs persona to appear in an R-rated movie.
It's unlikely the same will happen to Rauch, despite that her R-rated shift into “The Bronze” — dropping more F-bombs than a Richard Pryor concert movie, and engaging in a comically athletic sexual encounter — leaves Travolta's transgression in the proverbial dust.
She plays Hope Ann Gregory, a self-centered, socially toxic former Olympic gymnast stewing in the juices of her own life disappointments.
We first meet Hope in her sports-memorabilia-decorated bedroom watching an old videotape of her life's pinnacle moment: winning a 2004 bronze medal for her routine on the uneven bars.
The only bars she knows about now are the ones where she goes to pick up male strangers for some quickies.
Her vocabulary is beyond coarse. And her caustic personality would drive everyone in her small town away, except her celebrityhood is the community's only claim to fame, fading such as it is.
Now, even that is threatened when a new, local female gymnast — 16-year-old Maggie (Haley Lu Richardson) — promises to eclipse Hope's accomplishments and replace Hope as the town's official mascot.
Hope agrees to coach the gullible Maggie with one thought in mind: sabotage her career.
But she changes her mind when her pathetically weak postal worker dad (Rolling Meadows native Gary Cole) finds a letter from Hope's recently deceased gym coach promising $500,000 if Hope can get Maggie into the Olympics.
Commercial maker Bryan Buckley directs “The Bronze” without much style or panache, and the screenplay (from Rauch and her husband/writing partner Winston Rauch) doesn't delve too deeply into its tale of redeemed arrested development.
Rauch is still cuter than get-out even while she's carpet-bombing the soundtrack with four-letter explosives.
Yet, “The Bronze” suffers by not taking cues from a Judd Apatow comedy wherein the worst of characters still elicits empathy from audiences.
Despite a full-throttle performance by Rauch (who has the character's natural athletic swagger down pat), Hope is one tough cookie to hang around for 100 minutes, even after she gets softened up a little by a shy, twitchy former classmate (Thomas Middleditch, working overtime for our sympathies) now in charge of the local gym.
Sebastian Stan plays Hope's ex-lover, the medal-winning gymnast Lance (yes, that's his name), a cocky, egocentric jerk who coaxes Hope into one more tumble for old time's sake,
Their spectacular, highly athletic tryst is so energized and outrageously comical, it should be an Olympic event.
“The Bronze”
★ ★
<b>Starring:</b> Melissa Rauch, Gary Cole, Thomas Middleditch, Haley Lu Richardson, Sebastian Stan
<b>Directed by:</b> Bryan Buckley
<b>Other:</b> A Relativity Entertainment release. Rated R for drug use, language, nudity, sexual situations. 104 minutes