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    Jake Johnson Likes to Play the Hollywood Game, Especially When It Changes

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    “When you get on this roller coaster, you don’t know how long you’re going to be allowed to play while you’re here,” the “New Girl” actor said about his filmmaking debut, “Self Reliance.”If you were bored enough — a stultifying job, living with Mom after a bad breakup — you, too, might climb into a mysterious limo carrying Andy Samberg. You might even consider the offer: outwit assassins for 30 days and win $1 million.It’s a risk that Tommy, played by Jake Johnson, is willing to take in “Self Reliance,” the dark comedy on Hulu that he also wrote and directed.Johnson, 45, was antsy during the pandemic when he decided the time for this project was now.“When you get on this roller coaster, you don’t know how long you’re going to be allowed to play while you’re here,” he said in a video interview from the studio he built for podcasts and Zoom calls in his Pasadena, Calif., home. “You should take chances and experiment. And if you have a relationship with an audience, you should be presenting new options.”Johnson is best known as an actor in movies and television, particularly the sitcom “New Girl,” which ran for seven seasons and is one of the reasons Anna Kendrick and Samberg agreed to come aboard “Self Reliance.”“Having somebody as funny as him start the movie, it sets the tone in the way that I want this movie to be viewed,” Johnson said before talking about losing at chess, carpentry mishaps and out-of-this-world restaurants. “And that is: sit back, have a glass of wine or smoke a joint or whatever you like to do and enjoy it. It’s a ride.”These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1My Twin DaughtersWhen I had kids, they become such a dominant part of my life. They transform every day, every thought. So the idea of living without them — I don’t even know what living is.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      ‘Self Reliance’ Review: Find a Friend, Save a Life

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      In this fleetingly amusing comedy, a lonely loser becomes the target of reality-show killers.The R rating awarded to “Self Reliance” for its language only proves the heavy-handedness of our rating system, as you’ll strain to hear anything in this genially bonkers comedy that couldn’t have been written by an 11-year-old. Which is exactly the age group most likely to enjoy it.Playing Tommy, an overfamiliar movie sad sack, the likable Jake Johnson (directing his first feature) radiates a shaggy warmth and appealing haplessness. Lost in middle age, Tommy lives with his mother, endures a tedious desk job and wonders why his longtime girlfriend has kicked him out. So when Andy Samberg (playing himself) sidles up in a limo and announces, “Congrats! You’ve been selected,” Tommy almost doesn’t care what for: Anything would be better than his humdrum existence.Tommy’s selection, it turns out, is as a contestant in a dark-web reality show. To win a million dollars, he has to survive for 30 days while an international pack of ninja-like assassins tries to kill him. A loophole forbids his murder unless he’s alone, so Tommy must persuade someone to shadow him 24/7 — bedroom and bathroom included. His family believes him to be delusional, hinting obliquely at earlier suspected breaks with reality; but Johnson’s screenplay would rather add another chase scene than address the more compelling issue of Tommy’s mental health.Tonally wobbly and sappily simplistic — without companionship, living is impossible — “Self Reliance” sends Tommy on a flailing quest for human connection. Both Anna Kendrick and the charmingly named Biff Wiff are diverting as temporary cronies, but the movie is too juvenile and too timid to acknowledge the real-world chill of its online cabal of murderous social misfits. The issue is not whether Tommy will survive, but why we should hang around to find out.Self RelianceRated R for unacceptable language (I guess) and unchecked silliness (I’m certain). Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. Watch on Hulu. More

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      ‘Ride the Eagle’ Review: A Nontoxic Bro Faces Midlife Lessons

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      A conga-playing, marijuana-smoking man approaches middle age — and romance — with help from a video from his mother.It’s doubtful that anyone who has enjoyed the work of the writer and actor Jake Johnson can name, offhand, an instance in which he has played a guy who works in an office. It’s just not a thing with his nontoxic, shaggy bro persona. In “Ride the Eagle,” which Johnson co-wrote with the director Trent O’Donnell, he plays a character compelled to contend with imminent middle age. But no worries — his journey in no way obliges him to button down or up. Just the opposite.Johnson’s Leif, a man of simple pleasures — yes, he fires up a joint pretty much as soon as he’s out of bed — lives on the property of the leader of a band for which he plays the conga drum. His mom, Honey (Susan Sarandon), who abandoned him as a child, has died. She has bequeathed to him a much snazzier cabin than his current one — but to get it, he has to run a gantlet of life lessons Honey lays out for him in a video she recorded before she died.When Leif arrives at her place, he finds a significant amount of dope in its cabinets, establishing a new bond between mother and son. The marijuana did not, strictly, belong to Honey, which sets up a plot point that draws in a menacing J.K. Simmons. Her instructions to Leif include a lot of carpe diem stuff that you yourself have likely heard a thousand times, even if you don’t have a hippie in your life. Fulfilling one task, Leif reconnects with an old love, the initially nonplused Audrey (D’Arcy Carden).“Where do these people get their money,” I wrote in my notes as Leif and his dog set out for a long drive at the film’s fade-out. Doesn’t matter. Nor do the multiple clichés. In “Ride the Eagle,” the laid-back vibe is all.Ride the EagleNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More