Chasing Molly

If you want to laugh, watch this. If you want to be entertained, watch this.

I am not Siskel or Ebert, but i give this flick 2 thumbs up. I was entertained through out the movie. I laughed out loud, to the point tears formed. A few times. The comedy in this flick is cleaver and the story is original. Its the kinda movie that if you watch for a second time, you will hear things you missed the first time around!

This tells the story of two ghost cleaners/con people who steal and sell a teapot full of drugs. The drug dealer then wants them back so one is taken hostage and the other, Molly has to try and get the drugs back, get the money for them or new drugs to replace them.

The film is quite funny to start with the two con artists on the phone discussing paranormal cases and then stealing from their victims as they try and clean the ghosts away. However the film then just seems to break down into a series of skits. It does not seem to flow. The ending also seems to be almost rushed and ruins the film to be honest. Its low budget but the film doesn't suffer and works well in its budget.

There are some funny parts of the film. More dialogue you will find funny than laugh out loud comedy. Most of the characters are unique and funny. Molly is particularly good. A lot of her lines seem to involve discussing unusual sexual practices, so I would not watch with your gran. Although there is no nudity. Just occasional cleavage. You may never look at a grapefruit the same way again.

The acting is a bit dodgy in places. There are some funny characters. But it just feels more like a sketch show than an actual film. Its still worth a watch though as it is funny and very well written.

Obviously the '10' written reviews are meaningless or phoney in light of the accurate 3.5 rating from 112 people who viewed what I viewed. The Molly actres was great but sadly surrounded by this toilet wall written script. I aborted the film way too late thinking it could not possible keep going in one downward spiral. Then, I went outside to get a fresh breath of air.

This is one bad movie. Bad acting, poor script, stupid story. I really don't know how people actually like this. Just stay away from this nonsense.

3/10.

I haven't gone into a film with zero expectations and laughed so hard since I picked up Idiocracy in a bargain bin in college over a decade ago (and I'm pretty sure their budget was exponentially larger for Idiocracy). With improv-style, lower budget comedies I typically cringe more than I laugh - but the few times I felt the jokes were getting into cringe territory here, I was still laughing (shamefully), and the Director and Actors instinctively seemed to know where to draw the line. Turns out, some of those scenes even led to hilarious payoffs later in the film.

All in all, this film actually seems to almost have a sense of self-awareness. The talented individuals involved with this production seem to be acutely aware of how similar films in their genre are typically received, and they inherently know the difference between cohesive comedy versus simply recording improv actors go off on tangents or long rants. Even the epilogue scripts hilariously poked some fun at their own film. I think these individuals understood the mantra "don't take life too seriously, or you'll never get out alive".

The last thing I'll say is that most improv comedies or lower budget comedies I see are funny to a point, right up until they fall off a cliff about halfway through and then putter out to an ending that tries to make some sense of what we saw. That is not the case with Chasing Molly. Even though many will consider this an "improv comedy" and it definitely has some of that off-the-cuff feel, there IS actually a plot that holds true throughout the film and the best jokes are the ones that have been slowly built up throughout the film. The overall plot probably could have been conceived in a single session; but the acting, directing, editing, and written dialogue of this film are actually what make it shine the brightest in a crowded field. I still come away thinking of Idiocracy for some reason - not because the films are necessarily similar, but because they evoked very similar surprise reactions from me; and I truly believe this talented group of individuals are future household names in the making, and we are blessed to be able to witness their ascension!