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As aw-shucks insurance salesman Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) learns to fly his freak flag at a convention he’s forced to attend, Cedar Rapids produces more smiles than laughs. Never having left his hometown of Brown Valley, Wis., Tim’s initially shocked by what he encounters in the title city, starting with his slightly uptight African-American roommate, Ronald (Isiah Witlock Jr.). He endures a naked hug with conference president Orin Helgesson (Kurtwood Smith), crashes a gay wedding, is forced to sing publicly and eventually smokes crack with a prostitute (Alia Shawkat, criminally underused) — but few of these awkward moments are actually funny. Most of the humor in Cedar Rapids comes from the unfiltered mouth of Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), a boorish salesman who “talks too much, drinks too much, and weighs too much” and ends up rooming with Tim and Ronald. Ziegler is a crude gas bag on a constant pussy hunt, and Reilly plays him so raucously, he provides this stale film a breath of fresh air — even when he is lighting his farts on fire. Alas, director Miguel Arteta, whose Chuck and Buck was a bracingly funny comedy about an innocent man-child, can’t seem to make Helms’ innocent-man-child antics anywhere near as awesome. —Gary Kramer

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Official Site: www.foxsearchlight.com/cedarrapids/

Rating:	R
Director:	Miguel Arteta
Cast:	Sigourney Weaver, John C. Reilly, Alia Shawkat, Rob Corddry, Ed Helms, Anne Heche, Stephen Root, Thomas Lennon, Kurtwood Smith, Isiah Whitlock Jr.
Release Date:	February 11, 2011 (Limited)
Running Time:	86
Distributor:	Fox Searchlight Pictures
Genre:	Comedy
Advisory:	for crude and sexual content, language and drug use