Sometimes you drain the swamp and sometimes the swamp drains you.
(2019) Comedy (Magnolia) Tim Heidecker, Gregg Turkington, Terri Parks, Curtis Webster, Don Pecchia, Manuel Giusti, Ndidi Amadi, Sarah Sherman, Corey Landis, Joe Estevez, Michael Diliberto, James Mane Jr., Melinda McColgan, Jesse Popp, Mark Proksch, Alessandro Serradimigni, Inger Tudor, Gabriel Patay, Dan Anderson, Eric Notarnicola, Ayaka Ohwaki. Directed by Eric Notarnicola
Tim Heidecker is a very acquired taste. One of the minds behind such cult comedy shows as Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show: Good Job! and On Cinema at the Cinema, this mockumentary grew out of a plotline in the latter show. Heidecker, playing a none-too-idealized version of himself, was a movie reviewer who knew nothing about movies alongside Turkington, playing a film geek version of himself.
Heidecker, a schemer with anger issues, organized an EDM festival in San Bernardino, distributed vape pens at the festival with tragic results. Indicted for mass murder, he gets off on a hung jury – all documented in The Trial mini-series. This movie proceeds from there, after Tim in a rage-filled rant on the final episode of the series, threatened to run for District Attorney of San Bernardino county.
This is the results of that rant, a mockumentary following Heidecker’s campaign. Heidecker schemes with his hapless campaign manager Toni Newman (Parks) – who also happens to be the one juror who refused to convict him of mass murder. We also get commentary from the Judge (Webster) who retired after the debacle that was this trial and occasionally, we see appearances from the incumbent (Pecchia) who is more concerned with his Democratic challenger (Giusti) than on Heidecker, much to Tim’s frustration. We also get man-on-the-street interviews with bewildered residents of San Bernardino.
If you’ve seen any of Heidecker’s web series, or his other movie (Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie) you probably have a good idea of whether the sense of humor is going to appeal to you or not. If you’re new to Heidecker, this is as good a spot to start as any; you can pretty much follow along with the story even if you haven’t seen any of the work that preceded it.
This is definitely aimed at young Millennials, particularly of the male persuasion. Heidecker is thoroughly unpleasant and not too smart; Turkington is shifty and obsessive, the kind of movie buff who gives movie buffs a bad name. Heidecker is channeling Trump in a lot of subtle ways, minus the rabid fanbase. I get the sense, however, that he is out to satirize the system and not specific politicians.
The action is fairly slow moving and some impatience sorts might get squirmy by the middle of the film. There are some wonderful bits in here, although the humor is so desert-dry that you might miss them. This takes deadpan to a whole new level.
I will never criticize anyone for having a different sense of humor than I have; everybody’s sense of humor is a highly personal thing and the things I find funny you might not and vice versa. That’s all good; this is really not my own personal sense of humor and I sense that it will appeal to only a narrow band of viewers. I will say that this is pretty typical of what I’ve seen of Heidecker; if you love Between Two Ferns and Adult Swim, you probably will enjoy this a bit more than I did.
REASONS TO SEE: Bone-dry political satire.
REASONS TO AVOID: A slow-moving acquired taste.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a good deal of profanity as well as some brief drug use.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The trial scenes were partially re-filmed after Heidecker had filmed them for his The Trial mini-series.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/13/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 64% positive reviews: Metacritic: 42/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Bob Roberts
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Fantastic Fungi
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