Netflixable? Baldwin and Hayek and the trainwreck of “Drunk Parents”

Oh you have GOT to see this. Seriously. Who doesn’t love to gawk?

Somehow Salma Hayek and Alec Baldwin took the title roles as “Drunk Parents,” drinking and flailing and spiraling down the affluence ladder — and trying like Hell to keep all this from their daughter (Michelle Veintimilla) in college.

Joe Mangeniello plays a family friend, a tough guy, always in camo, relentlessly abused by his foul-mouthed tweenage sons. “Douche” is the nicest nickname they offer.

Jim Gaffigan plays a new neighbor whom they rent the house next door to, WITHOUT permission from the owner Nigel (Aasif Mandvi), who is out of the country on a pilgrimage to Nepal.

New neighbor Carl? “Registered sex offender.”

Treat Williams is a guy with money they need to impress to get themselves out from under a tsunami of debt and debt collectors.

And then Will Ferrell and Colin Quinn show up as two winos who keep setting themselves on fire as they try to siphon gas out of the “moving” truck that some lowlife filled with Nigel’s furniture.

Oh, it’s a scene, man. But hey, you sign on to a movie co-written and directed by the guy nominated for a Razzie for the heinous script to “Grown Ups 2,” you take your chances.

I’m not going to say much about “Drunk Parents.” Just that it needs more drinking. Baldwin plays a dismissive, unfiltered and rude drunk. “Type casting,” amIright?

But Hayek? You want to PARTY with her, an out-of-control, shame-spiraling bombshell MILF who is convinced that everything they do to try to keep up appearances is illegal. Because it is.

“I’m going to YALE,” she keeps shouting. “And when I say ‘YAIL,’ I mean PRISON!”

There’s no getting around the fact that this is a middling movie, misshapen and wildly uneven. However, the “names” are funny, the pratfalls work. Hayek’s drunken tirades score. The best laughs here are gut-busters.

And, in an odd abrupt shift in tone, everybody, from the Teagartens, whose medical device breakthrough gamble fell just short, to other mighty-have-fallen types all around them, to the freaking SEX offender next door, has a “story.” Judging people, the way Frank Teagarten does the wheelchair-bound Office Depot assistant manager (Ben Platt) who fancies their daughter? Not smart.

“Enjoy the ride!”

Baldwin and Hayek knock back highballs and wine and whine that their lives of conspicuous consumption are over, belt out “The Sun’ll Come Out, Tomorrow” in Spanish and throw themselves at this as if it’s “As You Like It.”

No. The co-writer/director was a Razzie Nominee for a reason.

Ferrell and Quinn show up (uncredited) and riff until they find something hilarious to say even as awful things are happening to their two homeless wino characters.

So, yes, “Drunk Parents” is a road accident. But if there’s a busload of talent on board, admit it. You’re gonna gawk.

MPAA Rating: R for language throughout and crude sexual references 

Cast: Alec Baldwin, Salma Hayek, Joe Manganiello, Jim Gaffigan, Michelle Veintimilla, Will Ferrell and Colin Quinn.

Credits: Directed by Fred Wolf, script by Fred WolfPeter Gaulke. A Vertical release on Netflix.

Running time: 1:37

About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine
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