The stoner movie might be the least distinguished film genre in the history of the world.

I won’t deny that “Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke” contains its share of amusing moments, but for the most part stoned people are not very funny or interesting. This is, of course, due to the fact that they’re stoned, and may think they’re being funny, but are usually just sitting around doing nothing and saying stupid things. When the whole point of a stoner movie is depicting the comic misadventures of stoned people, well, the genre’s fatal flaw is obvious.

Even so, I was somewhat optimistic about “The Pineapple Express,” which opened last week and is something of a collision between a buddy action movie like “Lethal Weapon” or “48 Hours” and a stoner movie. On paper, the most intriguing thing about this film is that it was directed by the talented David Gordon Greene, one of the more unique young American filmmakers. Green had an auspicious debut in 2000 with “George Washington,” an elegiac, mostly plotless film about a group of teens in the rural south, and followed it up with “All the Real Girls,” a coming-of-age love story also set in the rural south. Green is unlike most young directors in that he doesn’t try to overwhelm the audience with flashiness or clever gimmicks, and seems to enjoy making films that are distinctly and deliberately uncommercial, and rooted in a specific place. He’s something of an auteur, which is why I thought he was an interesting choice to direct a big-budget action comedy produced by Judd Apatow, who seems to produce just about every other major comedy released by a major studio these days.

“The Pineapple Express” features many of Apatow’s favorite actors, and was written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who also co-wrote last summer’s surprise hit, “Superbad.” It stars Rogen (“Knocked Up) and James Franco (“Spider-Man”), whom Apatow has known since the two starred on his brilliant, short-lived television show “Freaks and Geeks.” (For more of my thoughts on Apatow and “Freaks and Geeks,” see this post.) Rogen plays Dale, a process server who is always stoned, and Franco plays Saul, Dale’s drug dealer. Saul has acquired a new strain of marijuana called the pineapple express that is so rare and wonderful that he is the only drug dealer in town who has it, and Dale is the only person he’s sold it to. (Saul describes smoking this precious marijuana as “almost a shame ... it’s like killing a unicorn.”) Anyway, Dale leaves Saul’s pad to deliver a subpoena to a slimy bad guy across town, and witnesses a murder at the bad guy’s house. He tries to slip away unnoticed, but, being stoned, he manages to crash into a couple cars and draw all sorts of unwanted attention to himself. The bad guy, being a major drug supplier, picks up the joint Dale has tossed out the window, sniffs it, and realizes that it came from Saul, since he’s the only drug dealer in the town selling pineapple express.

The movie takes off from there, with Saul and Dale fleeing the bad guy’s incompetent henchmen (fans of “The Office” will appreciate seeing Craig Robinson in a bigger role) and becoming accidentally embroiled in a crosstown drug war between the bad guy and a rival Asian drug ring. The movie is actually very funny and better filmed than most of the Apatow productions, and is probably one of the better entries in the stoner movie canon, such as it is. At this point, the problem with an Apatow production is that Apatow’s films have lost their freshness; when all of the same actors are cycling in and out of the films, and the scripts all feature the same mix of lowbrow humor and sweet natured human comedy, you end up with a fairly predictable formula, and I don’t like it when things are all that predictable. The film is worth seeing just for Franco’s hilarious performance, and to see how David Gordon Green puts his stamp on a big Hollywood movie.

More stoner movies

One of my favorite movies, “Dazed and Confused,” is actually a stoner movie, although I prefer to classify it as a coming-of-age film in the tradition of “American Graffiti.” It’s set on the last day of high school, when the seniors are planning a huge party and doing all kinds of goofy nonsense, like playing mailbox baseball. Nothing much happens, really, but it’s consistently hilarious, with a great cast of actors, such as Ben Affleck and Matthew McConaughey, who have since gone on to bigger things.

“Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle” is a better movie than its title would suggest, as is “Super Troopers.”

If you want to see where the madness began, the original “Reefer Madness,” from 1936, is available on DVD.

Obscure video recommendation

I went to the dentist yesterday to get a crown on my tooth, and as the dentist was poking around in my mouth I couldn’t help but think of the 2001 film noir “Novocaine” starring Steve Martin as a dentist who becomes embroiled in murder, drugs and adultery. It’s a decent little film, and if you’re looking for some dentistry-related gallows humor, you could probably do worse than check it out.