The Interview [Blu-ray]

Director: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Craig Monahan

Overview

The CIA recruits a talk-show host (James Franco) and his producer (Seth Rogen) to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in this comedy from writer/director duo Rogen and Evan Goldberg (This Is the End). Franco plays Dave Skylark, a vapid talk-show host known for chasing celebrity gossip, while Rogen is his producer Aaron Rapaport, who's desperate to do more serious journalism. When Dave discovers that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (played here by Randall Park) is a big fan of his show, the pair decide to arrange an interview with him in order to boost their credibility. And the CIA, in turn, decide to use these two and the access they'll have to assassinate Kim. Aaron is all for it, but Dave is an easily swayed idiot who quickly falls under Kim's spell, and begins to see the dictator as a wounded man-child rather than someone worth killing.

Product Details

Release Date:	02/17/2015
UPC:	0043396439887
Original Release:	2014
Rating:	R
Source:	SONY PICT
Region Code:	A
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:52:00
Sales rank:	27,249

Special Features

Blu-ray Exclusives; Deleted & alternate scenes; Gag reel; 3 line-o-rama's; Directors of this movie; Spies among us; Randall Park audition tape; Getting into character; Puppy power; Here kitty kitty; Joking around; Dating a dictator; Special Features; Filmmaker commentary; Naked and afraid; See the stars of The Interview exposed in the wild

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

James Franco	Dave Skylark
Seth Rogen	Aaron Rapaport
Lizzy Caplan	Agent Lacey
Randall Park	Kim Jong-un
Diana Bang	Sook
Timothy Simons	Malcolm
Anders Holm	Jake
Reese Alexander	Agent Botwin
James Yi	Officer Koh
Paul Bae	Officer Yu
Geoff Gustafson	Cole
Dominique Lalonde	Jackie
Anesha Bailey	Janet
Charles Rahi Chun	General Jong,General Jong
Don Chow	Two-Fingered Man
Hugo Weaving	Actor
Aaron Jeffery	Actor
Michael Caton	Actor
Peter McCauley	Actor
Glynis Angel	Actor
Michelle Kim	Hot Korean Girl
Lia Lam	Hot Korean Girl
Willem Jacobson	Drone Pilot
Daniel Lim	Guard #1
Tommy Chang	Presidential Body Guard #1,North Korean Soldier
Aubrey K. Miller	Kim
Mercy Malick	Pundit
Alice Wetterlund	Jackie
David Diaan	Palestinian President
Thomas Cadrot	Fake Korean Soldier
Scott Seol	Rebel Guard
Paola Botero	Dancer
Yuna Song	Korean Girl
Harrison Lee	Yo-Yo Boy
Jason Cox	Paparazzi
John Coughlin	Helicopter Pilot
Peter Neilly	Helicopter Pilot
Yoosik Oum	South Korean Scientist
Daniel Park	Korean AD
Justin Lee	Captain Tsung
Don Lew	Tape Operator
Andrew Chin	Video Switcher
Jung Jin Park	Video Switcher
Dan Sterling	Tech Specialist
Fred Henderson	News Anchor
Danny Shea	Cab Driver
Justin Cho	Presidential Guard
David Kim	Korean Guard
Adrian deLotz	Chinese Bus Driver
Hong-Gill Cha	N.K. DMZ Soldier
Sean Cho	N.K. DMZ Soldier
David Ko	N.K. DMZ Soldier
Jack Jekeon Cha	N.K. DMZ Soldier
William Stewart	Doorman
Stacey Turner	News Anchor
Sam Catlin	News Anchor
Ben Schwartz	Publicist
Danyella Angel	Caroline
Alan Blumenfeld	Israeli Prime Minister
Paul Herbert	Tech #2
Daniel Juhn	North Korean (as Daniel Chun)
Nick Kaiser	Studio Worker
Daeyoung Danny Kim	North Korean Soldier
Crystal Lee	Voices
Won Hee Lee	Actor
Isaac Shr	Jim
Paniz Zade	Party Goer
Joseph Gordon-Levitt	Actor
Henry Jackman	Composer

Technical Credits

Seth Rogen

Evan Goldberg

Dan Sterling

Seth Rogen	Screenwriter,Producer
Evan Goldberg	Screenwriter,Producer
Shawn Williamson	Executive Producer,Producer
James Weaver	Producer
Dan Sterling	Screenwriter,Executive Producer
Kyle Hunter	Executive Producer
Ariel Shaffir	Executive Producer,Producer
Ben Waisbren	Executive Producer,Producer
Blake Pickett	Producer
James Franco	Executive Producer
Francine Maisler	Casting
Maureen Webb	Casting
Chris VanDyck	Executive Producer
Chris Duesterdiek	Sound Mixer
Michael Babcock	Sound/Sound Designer
Eric Norris	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

The Interview is a decently funny, surprisingly violent action comedy starring James Franco and Seth Rogen. It is also, incredibly, the most important film of the year, in the sense that it sparked an international incident, arguably the largest cyber attack in history (which resulted in the wide-scale humiliation of distributing studio Sony Pictures), a controversy over theater chains refusing to screen the movie when terrorist threats were made against anyone who dared to show it, finger-pointing by both said theater chains and Sony regarding who exactly capitulated to the hackers' demands, a statement by President Obama saying that failing to exhibit the movie amounted to censorship and letting the terrorists win, and finally, a release in a small number of theaters and on-demand services. All this from two guys who got their start playing stoners on Freaks and Geeks (no disrespect to F&G -- the show's a flat-out masterpiece and you need to watch it immediately if you haven't done so). You can't make this stuff up. So the controversy surrounding The Interview is even more insane than the plot of the movie itself, which is pretty outlandish to begin with. Is this film good enough to justify the possibility that it might be included in future history textbooks? Well, no. This isn't slashing political satire, unless you need to be informed that North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship that doesn't have its people's best interests at heart. It's really just a bromance starring Franco and Rogen that uses North Korea as a backdrop, and on that scale, it's better than Pineapple Express and not as good as This Is the End. Franco plays Dave Skylark, a vapid talk-show host known for chasing celebrity gossip, while Rogen is his producer Aaron Rapaport, who's desperate to do more serious journalism. When Dave discovers that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (played here by Randall Park) is a big fan of his show, the pair decide to arrange an interview with him in order to boost their credibility. And the CIA, in turn, decide to use these two and the access they'll have to assassinate Kim. Aaron is all for it, but Dave is an easily swayed idiot who quickly falls under Kim's spell, and begins to see the dictator as a wounded man-child rather than someone worth killing. Despite a third act that's much bloodier than you'd expect, The Interview never goes for the jugular on Kim Jong-un or North Korea. The revelation that turns Dave against Kim is his discovery that a fully stocked grocery store is just a ruse; that's fine, but pretty mild for a movie that keeps reminding us of the horrors North Korean residents have to endure. The most interesting subtext in The Interview isn't the political material at all, but the way that jokes in dude-centric comedies have shifted from homophobic gags about how guys don't want to be seen as gay to jokes about guys pretending to be gay as an expression of how much they love their closest friends (whether or not these laughs are still homophobic is your call). There's even a subplot in which Kim Jong-un laments that his father found his love of pop culture, particularly the songs of Katy Perry, to be proof that he was gay, and that his cruelty is a way of overcompensating. A smarter, more nuanced movie might have used these ideas to explore modern masculinity and how it can be warped into something toxic and dangerous when left unchecked. The Interview is not that movie. It also didn't need to be 112 minutes long, and it's a shame that it mostly wastes the talents of Lizzy Caplan, who shows up in the beginning as the CIA agent who trains Aaron and Dave, then disappears from the film for long stretches at a time. Regardless, The Interview is pretty funny once it gets to North Korea, and it manages to generate real tension out of its assassination plot. Plus, it deserves partial credit for taking aim at an actual dictator rather than a fictional figure. It can't live up to the hype surrounding it (if that's even the right word), but it's an amusing way to kill two hours -- with the added bonus that it lets you feel like you're giving the finger to a real-life tyrant.