The film is at its best when it exploits this tonal eclecticism to the fullest, and it's tempting to ascribe these moments to the intervention of Green, whose previous work has always been marked by this kind of stylistic catholicity.
This queasy, comical sensibility drives the action of Pineapple Express. There were more than a few scenes that made me think of Green's brilliant credit sequence for Undertow, in which he staged a chase where the main character gets a nail stuck through his foot with a wooden board attached, and has to hobble through the rest of the chase as a result. It's like staging a kung fu battle and then suddenly having one of the fighters throw a lemon meringue pie instead of a roundhouse kick the merging of slapstick and brutal violence is one of the film's signature comedic techniques. Green films the resulting sequence with judicious use of the long view, which really emphasizes the absurdity of what's going on whenever the cop car comes careening around a corner with that sneakered foot sticking out of the front window. Saul has the pot-inspired idea to try to kick out the glass, and instead gets his foot stuck through the windshield. In one of the best scenes, Dale and Saul make a getaway in a cop car whose windshield has been totally obscured by red smoothies. The film is tonally varied, but it achieves its shifts not through sudden disruptions but subtle gradations the silliest stretches of comedy are also shot through with both violence and emotional warmth, while even the bloodiest action sequences have their moments of quirky humor. The film's shift from languid stoner hang-out flick to action thriller is handled smoothly and almost seamlessly. Saul wants to be buddies with his client, but Dale just wants to buy his drugs and get out, until he witnesses a murder and is forced to go to Saul for help. In Pineapple Express, the heroes are the slacker Dale (Seth Rogen), who treats his job as a process server mainly as an excuse to smoke lots of pot and visit his high school girlfriend, and Saul (James Franco), Dale's clingy and brain-fried drug dealer. It's consistently one of the most genuine and endearing elements in the Apatow-related films. They aren't afraid to hug or even kiss each other, and a real affection exists between the friends in these films that is seldom captured in the movies, and certainly not in Hollywood movies. These films frequently exploit the male friendships for jokes on homosexuality, while also admitting that they're not totally kidding, that they really do love each other. Even when sex drives the entire plot, as in Superbad, it's the friendships between the guys that ultimately matter. A common theme in Apatow's films is guy bonding, and his films often sideline romantic relationships to focus on guy/guy friendships. In this, Green is helped by a pair of fine actors who develop a completely believable chemistry with each other almost like romantic leads, a conceit that the film plays with frequently, much like the Apatow production Superbad. It's a buddy movie, a raucous and raunchy comedy, and an explosive action flick, and in the midst of all of this there's still room for the film to slow down on occasion for the light touches of character and quirky detail that strongly bear Green's mark. The layering of different sensibilities and genres could easily have resulted in a mishmash of conflicting styles, but one of the miracles of Pineapple Express is that it all holds together quite naturally. The result is a smooth union of Green's meditative eye for character and detail with the propulsive momentum of a script that segues from stoner humor into increasingly over-the-top action set pieces. In retrospect, Green's low-key, off-kilter sense of humor is a perfect fit for this material, and clearly producer Judd Apatow, who always seems to have a keen sense for the right people to surround himself with, saw the qualities that Green could bring to this film. Pineapple Express proves that director David Gordon Green was a surprisingly apt choice to direct a stoner comedy.