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

"So, you're like The Transporter?"

Independent Film Company / VVS Films

Character actor and independent filmmaker Macon Blair writes and directs the appropriately titled slacker road trip comedy, Idiots (originally titled The Sh*theads). Starring a loser-ish 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 escort to rehab, the film sticks to the usual The Hangover formula on its predictable things-go-wrong detour of a mission.

Co-starring Kiernan Shipka, Nicholas Braun, Peter Dinklage, and Blair himself as a string of degenerates they meet along the way, the friendly stripper, rapper wannabe gangster, and unsavoury drug dealer, everyone we meet along the way are basically bad people 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 bromance magic of the gross-out, drug-fuelled comedies of the 2000-10s era.


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