MANY films deal with carrying a shipment of drugs across borders and past watchful eyes of enforcement agencies. How that idea looks on the screen depends on the genre chosen for the screenplay. Comedy might seem to be the least painful.

“We’re The Millers” purports to take that route from Mexico to Denver in a gigantic gas-guzzling motor home carrying several tonnes of concealed marijuana.

The deeper the screenplay digs into that main structural member and the harder it works to persuade us to laugh, the more forlorn it becomes as it concentrates on outsmarting the real bad guys or avoiding the law enforcers. But to discern what it says about salvation and human kindness, you need to distance your brain from what’s on the screen.

Jason Sudeikis plays small-time street peddler of weed who, to pay out a debt, agrees to bring back a consignment that his supplier describes as a smidgen. For a cover story, David persuades stripper Rose (Jennifer Aniston), tough street kid Casey (Emma Roberts), and dweebish adolescent Kenny (Will Poulter) to tag along playing the members of the Miller family.

From this point the integrity of the plot begins to crumble and constrict the scope for the actors to develop their characters. Spoiling the broth begins to become significant for the film’s effect. The excess of cooks are Bob Fisher, Steve Faber and four other writers who adopt for their dialogue policy the sewer and genitalia of every kind. Some folk find those subjects cause for laughter. But here they develop into an over-egged pudding.

At Dendy, Capitol 6, Hoyts and Limelight