Starring Andy Samberg, Ian McShane, and Sissy Spacek. Rated PG.

Saturday Night Live has now been around so long that its moviemaking sideline has itself spanned decades. With ex– SNL er Will Ferrell executive-producing, Hot Rod is a torch-passing moment. As entertainment, it's a remarkably unambitious yet moderately diverting time waster.

Andy Samberg stars as Rod, a young slacker who dreams of becoming a stuntman in order to impress (and, later, to save the life of) his brutish, unloving stepfather (Ian McShane). Jorma Taccone is Kevin, Rod's geeky half-brother and video assistant. Samberg, Taccone, and director Akiva Schaffer are also known as The Lonely Island, the comedic filmmakers behind the famous "Lazy Sunday" rap video. Hot Rod may have given them the budget to hire vastly overqualified supporting talent such as McShane and Sissy Spacek as Rod and Kevin's parents and Isla Fisher as a cute neighbour/love interest, but it has otherwise left their nerdcore sensibilities intact. It is a comedy of unkind observation, with long takes of shy characters behaving with awkward realism. The humour doesn't come from their jokes but from their most earnest hopes. Even the small-town American setting is painfully drab; Greater Vancouver has rarely looked less great.

It's typical of Rod's desperately optimistic self-delusion that he plans to jump 15 school buses–thereby shattering Evel Knievel's record–while using a moped. Enjoying his predicament requires audiences to be somewhat heartless. Fortunately, as in Ferrell's Anchorman , we are given occasional oases of fantasy and surrealism. They don't make sense narratively, but they remind us that no actors were emotionally harmed in the making of this film.

It all leads to a remarkably conventional and predictable climax, but I predict a decent second life for Hot Rod on DVD as the backup movie for teens too stoned to remember where they left Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle .