The latest in our series of writers defending loathed films is a plea to reconsider David Gordon Green’s foul-mouthed fantasy adventure

In 2008, David Gordon Green surprised his modest but dedicated following by pivoting from Malickian post-industrial indie movies to Pineapple Express, a stoner buddy picture so indebted to cheeseball 80s action comedies that it commissioned its own Huey Lewis theme song. Far from a sellout, the movie still exhibited his sensibility, chasing humanist absurdities with unexpected violence, recalibrated for mainstream delight. Three years later, delight turned to alienation with his follow-up, Your Highness, a fantasy-spoof vehicle for Green’s longtime friend and collaborator Danny McBride. Critics cringed, audiences stayed away, and McBride’s career as a big-screen star was short-lived.

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