MACGRUBER

DIE HARD IS EASY. DIE HARD COMEDY IS HARD.
MacGruber
*
Review by Joel Frost
The general structure of a MacGruber skit on Saturday Night Live is this: A bomb is about to go off, and MacGruber must defuse it. His side-kick Vicki is there, handing him various things he needs to do the job, and letting him know just how much time he has left. There’s often another person in the room, usually the show’s host, and the discussion between MacGruber and that person winds up distracting MacGruber from defusing the bomb. So it blows up. That’s the gag. Week after week on SNL, often more than once a show, MacGruber, Vicki, and someone else are apparently blown to smithereens. It’s satisfying in a way, since MacGruber consistently shows himself to be a pompous simpleton with no particular actual talent for defusing explosives. Watching MacGruber get his comeuppance time and again is a central part of what makes the skit funny. It’s satisfying to watch a dummy fail because of his bravado and lack of ability to focus.
The general structure of “MacGruber”, the film is this: MacGruber comes out of retirement in order to settle the score with the man who killed his bride. In the process, he gets to save the world, prance about naked with a piece of celery sticking out of his ass, and also rip people’s throats out with his bare hands. It’s MacGruber like you’ve never seen him before: with an R rating and no pesky TV censors. It’s MacGruber without rules! As nasty as he wants to be! It’s better!
Except that it’s not. It’s dumb, lifeless and most importantly, not funny. In the process of moving a decent SNL skit to the big screen, the same thing that usually happens has happened again. They fucked it up.
How did they fuck it up, you ask? I could say that the beauty of the original skit was utterly ignored. I could postulate that the structure that made MacGruber work on SNL, entirely ignored in the movie, was at the heart of what made the skit funny. I could say that MacGruber, being a pompous blowhard, is best viewed for short periods and then blown sky high. If I were to spend time analyzing MacGruber, I’d probably speak of the skits as having a firm place in the history of a certain style of comedy… that they were each a joke of the same kind, like a knock-knock joke. I could point out how Will Forte’s general comedic vision has to do with repetition. He likes to do something absurd over and over. Pound a point home until it’s funny. There’s a kind of disbelief in laughing at Forte’s comedy. What the hell is he doing? Can you believe it? He’s genuinely insane! There is a nervous twinge in the best laughter that Will Forte causes. It could be said that he parodies insanity itself.
But really, why bother? “MacGruber”, the film, is so bad that it defies analysis. It tries to parody action films of the 1980’s. It fails. It tries to make MacGruber a quirky, crazy, yet loveable hero. It fails. It tries to be shockingly violent and gross for the purpose of humor. It fails. It seems clear that the idea with “MacGruber”, the film, was to try to put it so far over the top… to try to make the explosions bigger, the poop and dick jokes nastier, the gore spatteringlier… that it couldn’t be ignored. “MacGruber”, the film, is meant to shock and alarm in a way that MacGruber, the skit, never did. It fails. I can’t say if this is all WIll Forte’s fault or perhaps the fault of those around him. I’d like to think it’s the latter, of course, but it doesn’t matter anyway. The film is dismal.
Initially, I was pleased to hear the film had an R rating. That seemed to suggest it wouldn’t pander to a middle-of-the-road sensibility. Somehow, though, that’s exactly what it does. “MacGruber” is frat-boy crazy, meaning it’s not really crazy at all. There’s nothing tense or dangerous or provocative about it. The humor, if it can be called that, rests completely on the kinds of things that make 13-year-olds laugh, and perhaps that’s not giving 13-year-olds enough credit. I suspect that a MacGruber film that didn’t have the leeway that an R rating includes could actually have been funnier, as it tried to tiptoe around the kinds of things it shows. For some comedy, an R rating is liberating, as it unshackles the writers and performers. For others, it’s an excuse to dwell on toilet humor. In the case of “MacGruber”, there is actual toilet humor, as in a joke about a toilet and poop, along with the general style of toilet humor. A PG-13 rating would have allowed “MacGruber”’s target audience to actually see the film, and might have made it better for those of us who left that age, and an appreciation for tired shock comedy, in the past.
The film isn’t utterly devoid of laughs. The parody aspect works well once or twice: there’s a section that starts in the style of a typical 80’s sex scene, ala Top Gun, and quickly devolves into a stark angle on a sweaty, grunting, climaxing MacGruber. At a couple of other points, watching MacGruber desperately offer to perform fellatio isn’t entirely without humor. But even at its funniest moments, which can be counted on one hand, MacGruber’s sleaziness is unlikeable. Unfortunately, we don’t even get to see him blow up at the end. This movie attempts to mock action movie cliches, and in the process, winds up in the blast area of another one: “MacGruber” is a bomb.
Directed by: Jorma Taccone
Release Date: May 21, 2010
Run Time: 90 Minutes
Country: USA
Rated: R
Distributor: Michaels-Goldwyn
OFFICIAL TRAILER

We’re thrust right in the middle of a huge, Ridley Scott-esque epic battle from the opening scene, as Robin is part of Richard the Lionheart’s army just returned from the Crusades. The mercurial Lionheart seems to take a liking to Robin, but he nevertheless throws him in the stockade for being harshly honest. But soon King Richard is slain, and Robin and his counterparts escape and happen upon another adventure, that of returning the King’s crown to the Queen. During this mission, they are also charged with returning the sword of a dying soldier to his father. The soldier’s name is Robert Loxley and soon Robin ends up assuming the dead man’s name and identity, and he falls for Loxley’s wife, Maid Marion.
Earlier this year I reviewed “Edge of Darkness” and admittedly couldn’t get enough Mel Gibson, despite his flawed personal life. Another Aussie who gets a lot of grief for his behavior is Russell Crowe, but he, as well, is pretty solid in nearly every film he’s in. It’s an odd bit of casting in that he’s perfect for this serious telling of the Robin Hood tale, but I can’t imagine he’d be that good if Ridley Scott were telling the tale of Robin vs. The Sheriff of Nottingham, as the glint in the eye and the wise quips would have to zip out of Crowe’s persona like an arrow out of Robin’s bow, and that would require more selling to get me to believe I’d see it (although his part in the GREAT movie “3:10 to Yuma” showed that cocky nature).
Though this film had a rough time on the festival circuit (see the documentary “Official Rejection” for further details), this movie has everything that true movie fans want: intrigue (violence), high production value (nudity), and excellent story telling (actual thought that is put into the script). Told in a nonlinear fashion about a series of events that all take place at the exact same time (11:50 am (ten minutes until noon)), this film keeps you engaged and wanting more at every given turn (though it’s acting is a little rough at times). I would compare it to a good episode of the series “Lost”, except this writer (Paul Osborne), understands how to write a third act (he actually answers the questions that he raises) (That’s right, I said it, J.J. Abrams doesn’t write 3rd acts, he just extends (repeats) acts 1 and 2 over and over (and over and over and over and over again)) (Look for more on that rant somewhere in future reviews).
I’m a fan of unconventional storytelling as long as it is done for a purpose (Pulp Fiction) and done well (Pulp Fiction). Scott Storm (director) and Paul Osborne (writer) achieve both. There are several traps in this script that a lesser team would have been caught in. (And by “lesser team”, I mean any aforementioned Hollywood big machine producer or market-eer.) For example, without giving anything away, if “Ten ‘til Noon” were a Hollywood film, the gay man would have been an over-the-top flamboyant stereotype and the kickass gun-for-hire wouldn’t have been a female. Additionally, the Hollywood machine almost never (Pulp Fiction being one of the exceptions, because it was laced with well known faces) allows this kind of unconventional movie making. Similar to Quentin Tarantino and Alfred Hitchcock, Storm and Osborne kill off major characters that, as an audience member, you have invested in and care about. Furthermore, like the Coen Bros, some of their important deaths occur off-screen. 
And this is where “Iron Man 2” succeeds as a good sequel. The stakes are raised across the board. Much like the very successful sequel “Spider-Man 2”, the main character’s ability to sustain his heroic intentions are put to the ultimate test early, and there are real consequences. Unlike the not-so-successful sequel “Batman and Robin”, “Iron Man 2” handily juggles an onslaught of new characters, including the great Sam Rockwell, perfectly balancing desperation and buffoonery as the anti-Stark, Justin Hammer. Hammer, always second to Stark in defense technology, is happy to back Danko’s revenge by tapping into his knowledge and drive. The plot, although complex, is relatively simple. It’s the revenge story, coupled with S.H.I.E.L.D. infiltrating Tony’s life to set up the groundwork for the formation of The Avengers. It sometimes unfolds a little slowly, but great casting saves those moments.
Mickey Rourke is great as Vanko, the next step in a perfectly-orchestrated movie comeback. After the critical success of “The Wrestler”, he’s now going to get commercial success with “Iron Man 2”. Don Cheadle admirably steps into the role of Stark’s military buddy James Rhodes, but his plot is the most contrived. He objects to Tony’s self-destruction, and his way of protesting is a rather elaborate fight sequence that could’ve been something much more simple (Rhodey knows how to operate an Iron Man suit?). Rhodes’ loyalty to the military complicates his relationship with Tony enough without a special-effects-laden action scene.
Matt Damon plays Roy Miller, a Chief Warrant Officer in Baghdad in charge of finding the stashes of weapons of mass destruction. So, right away I know that this isn’t going to be a feel-good movie. The filmmakers have established at the beginning that our hero will not accomplish his mission! There are no WMD. This part of the film made me angry. It’s frustrating as hell to see a depiction of our soldiers on a fruitless mission. The one thing that I’m told you can’t mess with is intel, and the belief that Iraq was harboring WMD is the result of people screwing with intel to suit their own war-mongering means.
Miller goes rogue after learning that his mission is doomed, determined to expose the real reason Americans invaded Iraq. A tall order. Helping him is journalist Lawrie Dayne, played by the great Amy Ryan. Based on the lightweight, no-questions-asked coverage of the war by the media, journalists are a dying species of people to put your faith in. Helping more is the even greater Brendan Gleeson as Marty, a CIA operative who leaks the true nature of America’s presence in Iraq to Miller and gets the ball rolling. The eternally underappreciated Greg Kinnear is also great as White House stooge Clark Poundsgate. Gleeson squaring off with Kinnear is great to watch.
The next song was “Stealing Time from the Faulty Plan”, which is a track from the new album “Joy”, kind of a hypnotic tune that has grown on me since the release of the album. “Undermind” was the next selection which I thought was a strange choice to put in the film, but it was surprisingly good, certainly not a favorite of Phish fans. Next is the well known, “Tweezer” which went on for quite some time and went right into “Maze” which was one of my favorites of the film – great energy and lots of great 3D effects, including awesome visuals of these huge fire-breathing sculptures on the field. The final song of the first section of the film was “Mike Song”, which is obviously performed mainly by Mike and is another crowd favorite, a solid performance.
The Phish Halloween tradition is that they create a musical costume by covering an entire album by another artist. At Festival 8, there were a bunch of possible albums, but the final choice of “Exile on Main Street” by the Rolling Stones wasn’t revealed until the band hit the stage. “Loving Cup” is already a song that is in heavy rotation with the band and it always amazing, this version with the horns and the backup vocals was the best I have ever heard…totally amazing. “Happy” was next followed by “Shine a Light” which was amazing, and finally “Soul Survivor”, which was led by Fishman, who is not known for having the best voice, but it was OK.




This is true. But I imagine it feeds into one of the things working against the indie filmmaker. How unstable do you find screeners, and what else can be beyond your control that leads to your film’s demise when it comes to being considered for a festival?


I’m sure you know “Clash” is based on a 1981 film starring Harry Hamlin and Laurence Olivier. It concerns Zeus’ son Perseus and his quest to save Greece from The Kraken. The real stars of that film, however, were the classic stop-motion animation creatures of Ray Harryhausen. And even with the tens of millions of dollars spent in special effects by the update, the visual result mostly doesn’t compare. One impressive sequence in the new film is the action scene with giant scorpions. They look pretty damn real and are as intimidating as they need to be.
Sam Worthington is a solid lead for any movie, but he shows his least amount of depth yet. He looks good and trudges through the movie as a true battle hero, but there’s no vulnerability, nothing to relate to as an audience. He showed more emotion as a cyber-creation in “Terminator: Salvation”. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes chew scenery as the gods Zeus and Hades, respectively, but maybe this looked cool thirty years ago, but now I gotta admit it was kind of goofy to see these grown men traipsing around Mount Olympus in goofy costumes. 
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Capsule reviews include "The Ghost Writer" and "The Lovely Bones". Quick plot, quick opinion and we're out.
