Grade: C- | Genre: Comedy Summary: You've forgotten about it before you've finished watching it assuming you're still awake.

Starring: Matthew Lillard, Seth Green, Dax Shepard & Burt Reynolds
Director: Stephen Brill

What is it about the no brainer comedy that causes us to seek them out on the video store shelves as if they were the English Patient? An even better question would be if they are so senselessly fun then why are they so damn hard to come by? I think that when it comes right down to it, a smart, original comedy that keeps us laughing and engaged while supporting some goofy, implausible story is pretty hard to write even though it ultimately comes off like two stoners hacked it out in a weekend. Without a Paddle is one of the disappointing ones that probably was churned out in a weekend. You've forgotten about it before you've finished watching it assuming you're still awake.

Think of this as Road Trip meets the Goonies. Three life long friends reunite in their early thirties to mourn the passing of their of their fellow compadre, Billy. While sifting through nostalgia and reminiscing, they stumble across a pact they made as kids to find airplane hijacker D.B. Cooper's lost loot. After tackling the initial resistance of dweeby, overly phobic Danny (Green), the three set out for western Deliverance country for a quaint camping/treasure expedition. Of course, all hell breaks loose two seconds after the trip begins as they battle category 5 rapids that torch their canoe and a grizzly that devours their campsite. Along the way, they inadvertently burn the largest marijuana field ever planted, you can imagine what jokes this smokes out, and the hillbilly rednecks that owned it are now out to kill them.

The remaining is fairly trivial as they come to the obligatory life changing revelations that come from being put on death's doorstep. The worst part is that Without a Paddle is only marginally funny. You see most of the humor coming from a mile away so they ultimately miss you. The couple chuckles it does earn are way too few and most were eaten up watching the trailer long before we pressed play. Really the only redeemable thing here is Burt Reynolds as the mountain man who was D.B.'s partner. He is the comic light in this darkness and it's too bad they didn't find a way to utilize him more.

As far as no brainers go, this certainly qualifies as something to throw in and mentally check out though it isn't clever enough for us to want to visit it again like a Road Trip or an Old School. I'd suggest picking one of these up instead to get your fix.

Rent these choice selections tonight at Netflix.