Snatched: EW review

Who hasn’t imagined, even for an hour or two, that Goldie Hawn was their mother? That conceit—and a few hastily scrawled script notes on a Post-it—was apparently enough to get Amy Schumer to sign on to Snatched, a profane, wildly scattershot comedy that rides almost entirely on the sheer life force of its two stars. Schumer is Emily, a spectacularly self-involved woman-child who bungles her way out of a job (retail) and a boyfriend (regulation band-bro) on the eve of a romantic trip to South America. Emily’s odds of finding someone else to come along are drastically reduced by the fact that most of her friends seem to hate her, but a visit home to the adoring Linda (Hawn) sparks a last-ditch plea: “Come on. Help me put the fun in unrefundable,” she begs. Linda demurs; she’s the kind of panic-button mom who sees peril in a crosstown trip to Costco. But maternal love wins, even as the tourism board of Ecuador prepares to take a blow; the resort is actually gorgeous, and day-drunk Emily even meets a man (Tom Bateman, a stubbled dreamboat with teeth so white they’re a beacon).

Except he is, of course, also Linda’s worst fear come true: a bait hook for a band of ruthless kidnappers who toss both women in a jungle prison, demanding ransom. Emily’s first-world oblivion and Linda’s bad knees hardly bode well for survival, and the plot pitches and weaves like a drunk lemur. But as Snatched’s blonde-leading-the-blonde farce careens on, it stumbles into moments of deranged inspiration, lifted by loopy cameos (Ike Barinholtz, Wanda Sykes, a mute Joan Cusack) and Hawn’s dizzy, undiminished charisma. After nearly 15 years away from the big screen, she’s still pure Goldie. C+