Director: Macon Blair
Writer: Macon Blair
Stars: O’Shea Jackson Jr., Dave Franco, Kiernan Shipka
Synopsis: When two unqualified bozos are hired to transfer a rich teen to rehab, their straightforward gig quickly spirals into dangerous mayhem.
Idiots (previously entitled The Shitheads at its Sundance premiere) is a fascinating film to dissect in terms of the specific type of comedy it’s aiming for and the multiple tonal inflections it ends up giving off throughout. From both the marketing and vibe of the film’s opening minutes, most would likely think of it as a good old-fashioned vulgar and delightful crude comedy that only increases in hilarity as its mountains of hijinks escalate, and while that’s mainly true, writer/director Macon Blair intertwines the escapades with a surprising amount of attempted genre blending. The film, as it plods on, takes a shift into multiple genres, including a touch of action, genuine drama between its two screw-up lead characters, and even a percolating commentary on the ever-growing privilege of the rich youth that those of lower classes couldn’t even dream of touching. The result is a film that grows a bit more uneven in its plotting the longer it goes on, and it occasionally struggles a bit to find a true identity as our leads get into more dangerous situations, often becoming too mean-spirited and tonally confused. Still, Idiots is able to stay just sturdy enough to provide a fair amount of hearty laughs as a thrilling road trip comedy, even if everything it attempts doesn’t fully land.
The setup is simple enough, as our leads are two screw-up slackers, Davis (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) and Mark (Dave Franco). Both of them, mostly due to incompetence, have been fired from their jobs as Davis opens the film being let go from his church after accidentally showing the group’s youth a showing of Antichrist (yes, THAT Antichrist), and Mark is fired from his desk job on a count of doing too many drugs while working. The two hope to turn their recent mishaps around as they sign on to work for a transportation service that brings kids to a court-ordered rehab facility. The kid they’re in charge of is Sheridan (Mason Thames), a bratty and pampered rich kid with a large follower base on social media, and throughout the film, he only further showcases his troubled tendencies. With one destination to get to and a legally binding contract that they both signed keeping them focused, Davis and Mark try to make the gig as straightforward as possible, but when a chain of increasingly insane events begins when they stop at a motel, their night veers out of control and what was a simple job spirals into pure chaos and a matter of life and death.
Idiots is at its strongest, both structurally and comically, throughout the majority of its first half, as the character dynamics between our main duo are formed fairly well from the start. Mark and Davis are essentially polar opposites in their outlook on their current life choices, and it makes for a captivating butting of heads that slowly transforms into a buddy duo of sorts that’s more than appreciated, with Sheridan acting as the chaos agent in the dynamic. Franco is particularly good here as a consistently inebriated weasel, and it’s a testament to Blair’s writing that he makes such tried-and-true character archetypes still worthy of rooting for. The film peaks during a stretch in the motel when Sheridan escapes, and Kiernan Shipka’s erotic dancer character Irina is introduced. The small spurt of her, Mark, and Davis trying to get Sheridan back is where the film best balances its absurd silliness and underlying discomfort (especially in one great bodily dysfunction bit).
Unfortunately, the longer Idiots goes on, the more what were previously smaller issues start to pile up. The movie admittedly starts with an underlying mix of tones that it later develops as the bad situations for our protagonist escalate, but the problem is that the film struggles to have a clear idea of the exact type of movie it wants to be. This is particularly evident when Peter Dinklage’s character of Koko and his band of armed criminals are introduced, and a film that was already veering towards a few different tonal directions takes a complete 180 into mean-spirited territory. The bits begin to overstay their welcome (especially one rap sequence with Nicholas Braun’s character going full “Werewolf”), and that, on top of a shift the film takes with Sheridan’s character, never feels quite earned considering its previous rich privilege commentary. It’s where the entire film completely capsizes, but Jackson Jr. and Franco’s chemistry are still just able to keep things afloat within what starts to become an uneven mess.
For the most part, what you see is what you get with Idiots, an increasingly insane road trip to hilarity that’s clever enough, bits bolstered by its committed cast; it’s just increasingly hampered from being anything stronger by a screenplay that can’t quite narrow down what exactly it wants to accomplish by its end. Still, if progressively wacky hijinks, mayhem, and fairly funny situational comedy are what you want, Idiots will suffice, even with more than a small number of caveats holding it back.
