PEOPLE sometimes tell me that they envy what I do for “CityNews”. I see a lot of bum movies. I consider my duty best performed by warning readers about films the truth of which publicists don’t want cinemagoers to know until it’s too late to back out.

One such film is this foul-mouthed mishmash of unfunny dramatic stupidity masquerading as comedy.

Melissa McCarthy and husband Ben Falcone co-wrote and co-produced it. He also directed and plays a somewhat minor character. Ms McCarthy plays hamburger-joint waitress Tammy who, after getting fired for rational reasons, goes home to find her husband having lunch with an attractive neighbour.

In a fit of jealousy, Tammy borrows her grandmother’s car to drive to Niagara Falls. Grandma insists on coming along. You’ve can’t help liking Grandma, a great comic character, the film’s brightest light, an alcoholic nymphomaniac with a fat roll of banknotes.

Playing Grandma with more juice than the film deserves, Susan Sarandon leads a supporting cast including Toni Collette, Allison Janney, Kathy Bates and Sandra Oh, actresses of repute that makes their reasons for taking the gig hard to discern.

But the unattractive, tedious, unexciting, repetitive, lacklustre, mind-numbing participation of Ms McCarthy, dominating the film both behind and in front of the camera, is more than this or any other film should have to try to overcome.

At Hoyts and Limelight