GENRE | Dave Franco and O'Shea Jackson Jr. Act Like 'Idiots'

"So, you're like The Transporter?"

Independent Film Company / VVS Films

Independent filmmaker and character actor Macon Blair writes and directs the aptly titled slacker road trip comedy, Idiots (originally titled The Sh*theads). Starring a degenerate Dave Franco (also a producer) and devout O'Shea Jackson Jr. as shady transport service co-workers and Mason Thames as the zonked-out, devilish rich kid addict they must forcibly escort to rehab, the film sticks to the usual The Hangover formula on its predictable things-go-wrong detour of a destination mission (think The Last Detail).

Co-starring the talented likes of Kiernan Shipka, Nicholas Braun, Peter Dinklage, and Blair himself a string of well, "idiots," they meet along the way—the friendly stripper, a wannabe rapper gangster, unsavoury thug, and drug dealer—everyone we meet along the way is another degeneate hitting rock bottom, as the film's title strongly implies. These average but eccentric characters react poorly when caught up in a seedy underworld of crime and debauchery as a vessel for its brand of lowbrow tragicomedy.

Idiots ultimately feels mildly amusing but also wildly uneven at times. Both laugh-out-loud funny and intensely violent, the film's deviant characters try to recapture the debaucherous bromance magic of the gross-out, drug-fuelled comedies of the genre's 2000-2010s heyday. Idiots lives up to its name (both of them) as menacing amusement thanks largely to Franco and Jackson's earnest but odd couple pairing.


More | YVArcade / Exclaim / Indiewire / Moveable Fest