Leaves of Grass
Edward Norton is an actor with such a serious reputation that even watching a popcorn film like The Incredible Hulk is a recipe for a headache. So it’s a lot of fun to see the chin-stroking actor let go in this loopy pot comedy-drama. He plays both Bill Kincaid–a straight-edge philosophy professor hoping to put his Oklahoma “Little Dixie” past behind him–and his twin Brady, a man who might be called the Einstein of the hydroponics. Bill reluctantly returns to the old homestead after learning that his pot-dealing bro has been killed by a crossbow bolt. That’s just the beginning of a tricky and just a little goofy progression of double-crosses. The sibling rivalry/identical twin plot devices are even older than Cheech & Chong, but as well as Norton’s star turn, Grass offers incidental pleasures such as Keri Russell reciting Walt Whitman and Richard Dreyfuss wielding a menorah with intent to harm. An amiable crowd-pleaser.
Extras: A making of featurette and a commentary track, where Norton and director Tim Blake Nelson reveal that most of their stage weed was recycled from Pineapple Express.
- By C. Bottomley
