The premise is formulaic and potentially cheesy: A couple of go-nowhere buddies get arrested and, for their community work assignment, must serve as big brothers to a pair of misfit kids.

Whittled down to 30 minutes, this could have been a special episode of "Diff'rent Strokes." But it's the wildly, hilariously crude way that director David Wain and Co. approach this concept that makes "Role Models" so disarming.

The rampant wrongness would have been amusing enough on the page: preadolescents spewing obscenities, jokes about bad touching and children being exposed to nudity on a supposedly wholesome camping trip. But the delivery from co-stars Seann William Scott, Paul Rudd and the supporting cast makes the material consistently laugh-out-loud funny. Wain reunites with several members of the defunct MTV sketch comedy show "The State," including Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio and Kerry Kenney-Silver, and there's a comfort in the familiarity of the weirdness.

Scott's Wheeler and Rudd's Danny spend their days giving peppy, just-say-no talks at schools and peddling an energy drink, a job that requires Wheeler to dress up in a furry costume and guzzle gallons of green gunk. Danny, frustrated that his longtime girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks) has just rejected his impetuous and ill-timed marriage proposal, snaps one day and gets himself and Wheeler in trouble with the law.

Rather than going to jail, the two end up working with the Sturdy Wings mentoring group. Wheeler gets paired up with the freakishly foul-mouthed Ronnie (Bobb'e J. Thompson, radiating a scary amount of confidence for a 12-year-old), who's been raised by a single mom his whole young life. No previous big brother has stuck around for more than a day, but rather than feeling daunted by this petulant brat, Wheeler views Ronnie as a personal challenge.

Danny, meanwhile, gets stuck with the uber-dweeby teen Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, doing a more vulnerable variation on his "Superbad" character, McLovin), who's obsessed with his live-action fantasy role-playing game.

This is the kind of movie in which an adult and a child can bond over the not-so-subtle metaphor contained within the song "Love Gun." Inappropriate? For sure. But also kind of sweet -- and a model for comedies that are trying to strike that elusive balance.

- By Christy Lemire / Associated Press

Role Models

Rating: 3 stars ( out of four)

Cast: Seann William Scott, Paul Rudd, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jane Lynch, Bobb'e J.Thompson, Elizabeth Banks.

Running time: 99 minutes.

Rated: R; crude and sexual content, strong language and nudity.