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We’re The Millers begins with David (Jason Sudeikis) continuing to live like an eternal student, dealing weed while watching daytime TV. Living in the same apartment block is Rose (Jennifer Aniston), a stripper, with La Aniston still looking smokin’ hot.
David learns the hard way that when you work for a big drug boss and someone steals everything you have, you’ll be paying an extraordinarily high price to the piper when the tune comes calling. The man at the top, Brad Gurdlinger (Ed Helms), wants him to travel down to Mexico, pick up some of his marijuana and bring it back across the border to him. The catch? There’s absolutely tons of it. And the only way to transport it without suspicion is to do so in an RV with a family. Hence, Rose is the mum, Kenny (Will Poulter) – another resident of David’s apartment block – is the son, while the daughter of the clan is played by Casey (Emma Roberts), a homeless girl who also makes an early entrance in the proceedings.
So, it’s a simple premise. All it needs is the laughs, which are on strong foundations and any eventual – and unavoidable in an American comedy – schmaltz is kept to a minimum. There’s a lot of great set-pieces here, none of which I’ll spoil here as they’re fun to discover, and they’re all concluded as well as they can be, even if some scenes do get a bit daft.
Emma Roberts is the stroppy teenager with a penchant for the wrong guys who, apart from an amusing kissing scene, doesn’t have a great deal to do in this film other than play the ‘straight man’ to everyone else, while Will Poulter has a couple of scene-stealing moments such as an encounter with a tarantula and a special rendition of TLC’s Waterfalls.
Sudeikis is on top form as the head of the ‘family’, wisecracking aplenty and, as is shown in the extras, brings in the majority of the off-the-cuff improvisation, while Aniston certainly holds her own as well as taking them off during her strip scene.
One thing I did notice is that since Emma Roberts is 5’2″ and Will Poulter is 6’2″, there’s a marked difference in their height when they’re all standing next to each other… except for a late scene in the carnival when they’re much closer in height. With Aniston also in the same scenes, clearly two of these people are standing on boxes.
I watched the extended version without having seen the regular one before, but the extra bits include:
Go to page 2 for the presentation and the extras.
The film is presented in the original 2.35:1 widescreen ratio and in 1080p high definition and is highly-detailed which works best in the many outdoor scenes. I couldn’t find any flaws with the print. The print is crisp and clear throughout with no issues and looks fantastic on my Panasonic 50″ Plasma TV.
The sound is in DTS HD 5.1 and is mostly dialogue-driven but there’s music tracks in there, too. Again, no complaints, but it won’t make you jump out of your seat, either.
The extras are as follows and they’re all in HD:
- Millers Unleashed: Outtakes Overload (7:38): Yes, there are a few minutes’ worth as the end credits begin, but here there’s plenty more. This is more like a featurette as the cast and director Rawson Marshall Thurber talk about the improvisation while we see it in action.
- Behind The Scences: Stories from the Road (17:23): Broken into seven small parts with no ‘play all’ option so you have to keep going back to the main menu to select them. It looks at Jennifer Aniston, the costumes, the RV, the spider bite, the Mexican cop, Pablo Chacon and another piece about the RV, all with snippets of chat from key cast and crew.
- Behind The Scences: Living It Up With Brad (3:46): How everything in the drug dealer’s life revolves around his pet killer whale, mostly featuring Ed Helms, since he plays Brad.
- Behind The Scences: When Paranoia Sets In (3:16): How oregano substituted marijuana.
- Deleted and Extended Scenes (16:18): 8 scenes here. It starts with three variations on the Mexican cop bribe scene, but they do go on a bit, especially the first one which lasts around four minutes before we see anything really different. In fact, most of these scenes tend to play a lot of footage which we’ve already seen in the film. We didn’t need so much lead-up.
I’d possibly put back the extra bit in the hospital scene, but then you have a film that’s breaching the two-hour point and that length for a comedy is a little too unwieldly, as generally, 90-105 minutes is optimum for a good comedy.
There’s also a clip of Jason Sudeikis, Ed Helms and Ben Folds singing Waterfalls. This isn’t something that would be put in the film because Sudeikis’ character is on the road at the time, but it makes for an amusing extra. Shame they didn’t get Will Poulter to rap in the middle of it.
- Gags & More Outtakes (3:01): Does exactly what it says on the tin.
- Audio descriptive track: For the theatrical version only.
The menu is a static affair with a repetitive piece of the incidental music playing in the background. There are subtitles in English for the Hearing Impaired, plus French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Icelandic, Norwegian, Portuguese and Swedish.
If you need multiple audio languages, then there’s English, French, German and Spanish, but this is only for the Theatrical version. For the Extended, it’s English only.
Sadly, when it comes to chapters, I remember Warner once going to town on these in the early days of DVD, even giving 44 for titles like Disclosure. Unfortunately, these days, it’s a mere 12. This goes for both versions of the film.
There’s also a single trailer for a film before the main menu. I wish distributors would keep these for the extras menu only. As such, I’m not naming it here.
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FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
8 10 7 4 |
| OVERALL | 7 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 110 minutes (theatrical) / 119 minutes (extended)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Cat.no.: 5000173847
Year: 2013
Released: December 16th 2013
Chapters: 20
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS HD Master Audio 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English, French, German, Spanish
Subtitles: English plus 11 other languages.
Widescreen: 2.35:1 (ARRIRAW (2.8K))
Disc Format: BD50
Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Producers: Chris Bender, Vincent Newman, Tucker Tooley and Happy Walters
Screenplay: Bob Fisher, Steve Faber, Sean Anders and John Morris
Music: Ludwig Göransson and Theodore Shapiro
Cast:
Rose O’Reilly: Jennifer Aniston
David Clark: Jason Sudeikis
Casey Mathis: Emma Roberts
Kenny Rossmore: Will Poulter
Brad Gurdlinger: Ed Helms
Don Fitzgerald: Nick Offerman
Edie Fitzgerald: Kathryn Hahn
Melissa Fitzgerald: Molly Quinn
Pablo Chacon: Tomer Sisley
One-Eye: Matthew Willig
Mexican Cop: Luis Guzmán
Rick Nathanson: Thomas Lennon
Scottie P.: Mark L. Young
Todd – Strip Club Owner: Ken Marino
Kymberly: Laura-Leigh
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
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