The next time I feel the need to explain to someone why I don't like "comedy" films, at least now I can cite this movie as the quintessential example. You know what's funny? Life is funny. Literal clowns are hard to relate to unless you're 6 years old, because many adults tend to be grounded in reality, and based on the rating, a lot of people seem to agree with me here. This type of comedy, it's like a little kid jumping up and down yelling "Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!" It's just a self-indulgent club-you-over-the-head aesthetic that tries too hard. To put it simply, there is a lot of comedy that fails, where you at least respect the ATTEMPT. Here it's impossible to respect the attempt, because it's so self-fellating.
A drama movie with comedic elements. THAT'S funny. If you look at how Judd Apatow movies tend to rate, a lot of people agree with me there too. So, why is that relevant, and who cares if anyone agrees with me? Well, to put it in standup terms, if you're performing live, and only 20% of your audience thinks you're funny, while the rest think you're awful, guess what. You're bombing. That's why you can't package your fetish comedy into a feature film, and expect any degree of resonant success. In a feature film, you're not just performing to YOUR audience... EVERYONE sees it, and sure, of course, whether or not your comedy is GOOD, really doesn't rely on playing to the room per se, but either way, you can't JUST be playing to yourself, which is how this film feels to me.
Now, does that mean a bunch of comedian friends can't get together and just make a silly movie? Of course not, and that's where the term self-indulgent comes in. This is a passion project; a home movie. It's so incredibly awful. I'd say it's objectively awful from a comedic standpoint. EVERY single line doesn't have to be an attempt at a joke. If done properly, the JOKE is made much much funnier by the straight elements: the basic straight man/funny man dynamic. You really do have to take your foot off the gas at times.
I need to at least on SOME level believe the characters and the scenario for it to be situationally funny. Otherwise, in a way, it's like the film is making fun of itself, which it literally does quite a few times. In the end, it's just a very BAD parody of a heist film, which WOULD have been funny if that was their true focus, and it doesn't seem like it was. I don't think I laughed even once when watching this. The closest I came to laughing was the "sexy" shot where they try to showcase the EXTREMELY average looking female bank robber as some sort of hot luscious $ex object. This is conceptually funny in a fairly basic way by parodying perfect Hollywood aesthetic with the mundane.
In the end, this really is just such a white yuppie comedy, to the point where I actually feel bad for the black guy in this film. It's just such cornball puerile dreck. The only good thing I'll say about it, is at least it's not pc. There are lot of non pc racial jokes in this. They even used a lot of the forbidden no-no identity politics words that would get you blacklisted if you used them in 2023, even in a comedic context. Just hearing those in a film, even a garbage film such as this one, at least made me feel good in a very subtle way.
If nothing else, at least this film is genuine... a genuine pile of garbage that ISN'T so bad that it's good, and here's the perfect example to drive my point home: Tommy Wiseau's "The Room". You think it would still be funny if he was legitimately TRYING to be funny. Of course not. The context is what makes it funny. Sketch comedy just doesn't work well when packaged as a feature film. Sorry, just my opinion, and that of a lot of people.
