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Schumer, Hawn battle bad guys and each other in randy 'Snatched'

Need a movie recommendation for Mother's Day weekend?

"Snatched."

See? The title is already naughty and funny, and the movie that follows it is even naughtier and funnier.

In fact, "Snatched" ranks as the randiest, zaniest mother/daughter Ecuadorean abduction comedy I've ever seen.

It's not quite Judd Apatow's brutally honest "Trainwreck," stand-up comedian Amy Schumer's impressively personal and punchy starring feature comedy debut.

"Snatched," directed by Jonathan Levine and written by "Ghostbusters" and "The Heat" scribe Katie Dippold, comes off broader and more formulaic, yet peppered with enough outrageous surprises and cringe-inducing honesty to continually hammer on our funny bones.

Pay attention to the opening scenes, because in Dippold's screenplay, the most innocuous throwaway jokes boomerang back into the story.

Schumer plays Emily, an annoying loser floundering in an unfocused life of indecision and uncertainty in New York City.

Goldie Hawn, making her first movie in 14 years, plays Linda, Emily's dull, divorced, play-it-safe mom.

When Emily's rocker boyfriend Michael (Randall Park) dumps her just before her vacation to Ecuador, she begs Linda to come with her.

Nobody else will go. And her tickets are nonrefundable.

"Help me," Emily pleads, "put the fun in nonrefundable."

Linda reluctantly agrees and off they go to South America where Linda predictably curls up with a book in her hotel room while Emily makes time at the bar with a hunky guy named James (Tom Bateman).

James may or may not be involved with a gang of local kidnappers who abduct Linda and Emily, forcing the estranged pair to work together - or die.

"Snatched" slams into high comic gear with Emily and Linda making a great escape and trying to survive the jungle while avoiding capture by the dreaded kidnapper boss Morgado (Oscar Jaenada).

They think they've been saved when they run into an Indiana Jones wannabe named Roger (Christopher Meloni), until they discover he might be a few bullets shy of a full magazine clip.

Meanwhile back in New York, Emily's Klingon-speaking, agoraphobic, still-living-with-Mom brother Jeffrey (Ike Barinholtz) spars with an insensitive U.S. State Department official (Bashir Salahuddin) who has a short fuse and a firm reluctance to rescue the women.

Fortunately, Emily and Linda receive unexpected - and hilariously unorthodox - support from Ruth (Wanda Sykes), a strange woman they meet at their hotel, and Ruth's friend Barb (Joan Cusack), a retired CIA operative who cut off her tongue so she can't say anything compromising under torture. (But can't she still write down compromising things under torture? Emily asks.)

Schumer and Hawn share an adequate chemistry as daughter and mother, but Levine fails to extract from Hawn an initial, more hostile attitude to give the pair a stronger, more realistic relationship that can soften during their robust but routine chase comedy.

Schumer continues to be an audacious, fearless and un-embarrassable comic lightning rod for intimate female sincerity.

"People want young and beautiful females," a local bartender tells Linda and Emily, explaining Ecuador's sex slave trade. "You are both safe."

“Snatched”

★ ★ ★

Starring: Amy Schumer, Goldie Hawn, Ike Barinholtz, Joan Cusack, Christopher Meloni, Wanda Sykes

Directed by: Jonathan Levine

Other: A 20th Century Fox release. Rated R for language, nudity, sexual humor. 91 minutes

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