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Wednesday
30Sep2009

John C. Reilly Heads to 'Cedar Rapids' with Ed Helms

DateWednesday, September 30, 2009 at 11:17AM
If your dream cast is Ed Helms and John C. Reilly, I'd probably advise you to dream a little bigger, but having said that, these two guys in an Alexander Payne comedy might be hard to stop. That's the case with Cedar Rapids, a Fox Searchlight road trip comedy produced by Payne and directed by Miguel Artera (The Good Girl).

Helms was the first name aboard, and the announcement came a couple weeks after The Hangover opened. He's playing a kind of cousin of that character, too, as a naive small town guy whose "mind is blown by the big-town experience" while attending a regional insurance conference in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

The Hollywood Reporter says that Reilly is joining the ensemble piece as a "family man who sees the event as a vacation and a time to let loose." Reilly is one of the better serious comedic actors out there, and by that I mean that he is more capable of developing a sad character who says or does funny things than a lot of his contemporaries.

With few exceptions - Step Brothers might be the best one - his characters in comedies seem like they're run through the same filter as his dramatic creations. He clearly doesn't just build from the punchline out. I don't know why that's so hard for some actors to hone in on, but it is. Reilly's timing is almost always perfect, and he's generally a credit to any film he's in.

So this is a good pick-up and a nice partnering with Helms. I'd like to see who else is officially in the cast, but it's off to a great start.

AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | CommentPost a Comment |

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