Pretend that Bill Cosby and George Carlin had decided in the 80s to tour together and perform comedic bits together.
Are they both hilarious? Absolutely, these two are among the best comedians in the history of the game. But could they work together? Absolutely not, since they are two totally different styles of comedy. Bill Cosby is an excellent storytelling genius with an ability to engage with the audience and never talking down to them and never attempting to become offensive. George Carlin is a linguistic phenomenon that has a bitter taste of anti-establishment that made him an underground sensation. They are both funny and legendary in their prime, but if you put them together there will be some quality friction.
This is my sentiment with Colin and Brad: Two Man Group.
On one hand it's an excellent display of how very, very, very little of Whose Line is it Anyway was fixed or was pre-planned. To a lesser extent you can even call this an experimental film displaying the difficulty and the sheer unpredictability of improvisational comedy. But on the other hand you have two men that although they were each on the show had very different strengths and weaknesses.
Colin Mochrie, perhaps the funniest actor in the history of the improv television show, is at his best with physical comedy and deadpan delivery. Brad Sherwood is funny but looks like he is very restricted since he has to keep the vulgarness that he clearly has a knack for to the minimum. He doesn't do physical comedy as much, for he isn't as nimble or energetic.
And this is where the movie has a roller coaster ride of laughs. Some of the skits pay off significantly (The Sound Effects, and the Most Dangerous Improv Game in History) while others failed to truly deliver (The Closed Captioning bit was very hard to muster). But the beauty of Whose Line is at in the face of adversary, when the audience isn't as engaged, when the material to work with is tougher to deliver, the chemistry and ability to interplay with the strengths of each member yielded amazing results during moments that should not have delivered anything.
With Two Man Group, it's just two men, and two men that hardly work together. The movie would have had a far, far better chance if it was Colin and his usual partner-in-crime Ryan Stiles. While there were indeed laughs, especially in the final sequence, the lack of true-blue experienced chemistry prevented this film from rising above mediocrity at times.
At the end of the day, improv comedy is extremely tough because it requires for all the pieces to work together and all the elements to be on your side for the ultimate payoff of sheer laughter to be accomplished. Otherwise, it takes your ability to turn lemons into lemonade to push through the production. Colin and Brad have this ability----just not when working together.
The degree of difficulty and talent far exceeds the final product, but at lease you'll have some fun moments along the way.
