by Thomas Willett
10:00pm PST, February 8, 2012
Today’s sketch groups are a dime a dozen. Thanks to the Adult Swim line-up of brash, juvenile humor, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim are the latest to join that league, with their surrealist satire on access cable programming called Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job. Since then, they have created a cult-like following of nonsensical phrases, gross-out gags, primitive special effects, and have featured performers like John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell. Most households probably have never heard of them, and it’s doubtful that with the release of their debut feature, Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, that they’ll win over new fans.
For those expecting the duo to make their 90 minute version of morning TV parody “Amazon Women on the Moon”, there is some disappointment. Despite making their name with brief segments, they have decided to venture into the realm of one coherent story. The plot is about the duo going on the lam after wasting a studio’s budget of a billion dollars on a movie that features a Johnny Depp impersonator (Ronnie Rodriguez) and a really expensive jacket made of real diamonds. They eventually hide out in the rundown S’Wallow Valley Mall, where many hobos (including Reilly) and whacky shop owners (Will Forte) still reside with the intent on turning business around.
The premise alone provides some promising laughs. However, because the duo’s background involves being as off the wall as possible, many scenes come across as an endurance test. The Tim and Eric characters are created to be cleverly dense, tossing out non sequiturs consistently. Many scenes reflect this by presenting funny ideas followed by unexpected scat or genitalia jokes. There are also numerous moments where they assume the scene needs to be stretched out by yelling for ten seconds too long. It’s all in the name of comedy, yet it doesn’t add to the narrative or do anything but turn these characters into surrealist bullies on an unassuming public.
There is probably a good movie in here. Despite the unique premise and moments that actually work, it feels like an average gross-out comedy. It hits all of the marks needed to make you feel uncomfortable. It features enough creativity to be pleasantly weird. However, if someone were to consider this an introduction to the Tim and Eric characters, then it will do little to leave a memory.
Clearly a passion project of the creators, this feels like a missed opportunity. What made them cult icons was not their weird humor, but how they presented themselves. Numerous Youtube clips will show that their best moments are achieved in less than two minutes, and numerous sketches rarely have continuity. Monty Python had similar barriers to jump after Monty Python’s Flying Circus, but their humor managed to work because they found a premise that fit their style. While Tim and Eric are not as ambitious as Monty Python, they should have made an impression by just doing what they knew and make a 90 minute sketch film.
With cameos by Jeff Goldblum and Zach Galifianakis, there is some allure to newcomers. In fact, these two performances are the notable highlights. Their brief moments produce the absurdist comedy at its best, leaving a moment of gleeful confusion. They’re not crass, but they are definitely deviant enough to flesh out this disjointed universe. It proves that there is some creativity that isn’t being wasted on the juvenile humor that keeps this from being funnier. Maybe it’s really all that the characters have, but maybe they should have stretched out those moments instead.
For newcomers to the Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job camp, this is a terrible movie. There are many laughs, but through the overreaching story, it becomes mind numbing to find the good ones. Its humor is very schizophrenic and its plot underdeveloped. However, the difference between their skits and the movie is the time run. It’s impossible to make two minutes of a gag work as ten minutes of a plot. This will not create new fans and probably end up forgotten. It lacks the immediacy of their show and it’s a shame. With this much control, and supposedly a billion dollars, they should have gotten better writers.
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