America's love of winning and patriotism is often best displayed every four years at the Summer Olympics, when we pitch our nation's best athletes against other countries in the hopes of bringing home the gold. Then we'll promptly forget they existed for another four years.
The Bronze deals with what happens after the nation gets bored of their star Olympic athletes. Hope Ann Gregory (Melissa Rauch) won the bronze medal in women's gymnastics at the 2004 Olympics after heroically completing her program with an injured ankle. Now, over a decade later, Hope is still reveling in her celebrity status in her hometown of Akron, Ohio. Bratty, entitled, and outright mean, Hope still manages to get free Sbarro's and live at home with her dad, rent-free. Through a series of circumstances, Hope must face the reality of her aging by training young up-and-coming gymnast Maggie Townsend (Haley Lu Richardson).
This raunchy comedy, co-written by Rauch and her husband, often feels like it's trying a little too hard to be edgy. There's plenty of cursing and a few really great one-liners or tirades "“ perhaps all over-shadowed by a truly legendary sex scene that answers the nagging question of what two Olympic gymnasts would get up to in the sack. Overall though, the jokes never landed frequently enough for my taste. Even the attempt to soften Hope through the shy but good guy Twitchy (played brilliantly by Thomas Middleditch) seemed rushed so that by the end, I still wasn't sure if I should be rooting for her happiness.
Still, The Bronze is a foul-mouthed good time and there is definitely an audience out there that will love it. Full of quotable lines and outrageous gags, the film has the potential to become a cult classic.
