Lil Rel Howery always cracks me up in movies, so I was excited to see he had a big part in this comedy. And there’s always something I say about comedies as a genre – even if they’re bad, at least you laugh a few times. Unfortunately, that was the case here. It was bad. Although I did laugh a few times (which angered my wife, who hated it so much, she kept leaving the room). But how can I not laugh when Rel is getting busy on a sex swing, with his roommate sound asleep underneath it? Okay, okay, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk about the story.
Snoop Dogg gives us the opening narration about these guys who had been friends since childhood. I did notice “Snoopadelic Films” produced it.
Sid (Josh Brener) is a nerdy guy who sells solar panels, and he’s dating a rather attractive influencer (Jessica Lowe), who is constantly having him document everything she’s doing. That could be feeding ice cream to a dog, or wearing angel wings. The segments aren’t funny, and you wonder why, despite her being out of his league, he’d let her walk all over him like that; or why she’d ever be attracted to him to begin with (or the bizarre Bavarian puppeteer who lives next door, who she soon cheats with). And I did catch my wife laughing when she walked into his apartment and he said, in broken English, “Do you want to ride my Autobahn?”
Jonesie (Howery) just had his girlfriend break-up with him because she came home while he was tickling a stripper in a sex swing he just purchased. The scene made no sense, but again, I laugh at anything Lil Rel does, and I was cracking up at this. As the two friends talk about the break-ups, it’s decided they should be roommates. No, bro-mates!
As a kid, I remember watching The Odd Couple movie on TV, and laughing so hard at the antics of Jack Lemmon and Walter Mathau. They were both so different and the scenarios they got into were hysterical. While these two characters are also quite different, we just never care much for their unfunny scenarios, or either of them as people. Again, it doesn’t mean I didn’t smile as Jonesie drinks a beer in a plastic ball pit at a Chuck E. Cheese, and talks about how calming that is. It’s less funny when a child sees Sid in that ball pit and accuses him of being a pedophile.
It’s weird how many attempts at humor they made that just don’t work. Jonesie talking about meeting women on a website called “near-sighted, big bootywomen”, or a dog eating something from a previous rendezvous (use your imagination), and who has to retrieve it, or their gay friend “Runway Dave” (Brendan Scanell) ending up in a bathtub with the guy that checked them in at a hotel. Perhaps if I was 12, that would all be hysterical. Maybe the fans of Andrew Dice Clay will flock to this.
One of their friends, Angry Mike (Asif Ali), almost made me laugh a couple of times, simply because of his facial expressions.
Director/Co-writer Court Crandall (A Lobster Tale, Old School), really needed a better script with better jokes. It also needed a better and more believable plot. Comedy in films always works better if it seems like they’re real scenarios taking place, not just a bunch of dudes ad libbing.
It was nice to see Rob Riggle, and he almost seemed to yell “Catalina Wine Mixer – Powwww!”
Snoop Dog doesn’t just narrate the beginning (and produce the film), he has a cameo which is slightly amusing. But if you’re doing a crazy comedy that’s not expected to appear the least bit realistic (Airplane, for example), then most of the hundreds of jokes thrown at you better work. One out of 20 working here – isn’t a high enough ratio to warrant your time on these frat boy antics.
1 star out of 5.