Poolboy: Drowning Out the Fury

When I sat down to watch "Poolboy: Drowning Out the Fury" it was out of sheer boredom. But wow, this movie was such a wonderful surprise. If you enjoyed movies such as "The Naked Gun", "Hot Shots", and "Airplane!" then you definitely have to check out this movie, because it is equally funny and so far out there in spoof and gags.

The story is about Vietname veteran Sal Bando returning to America after 13 years in Vietnam! But the home he returns to have changed dramatically and his wife is now sleeping with the poolboy. Hellbent on revenge, Bando sets out to become the only white poolboy in the entire area.

"Poolboy: Drowning Out the Fury" is full of outrageous gags, jokes, punchlines and stupidity. I was laughing quite a lot throughout the entire movie. And I must admit that this movie is worthy aside the classic "The Naked Gun" movie.

And the people they had managed to pull together for making this movie was really great. There were so many familiar faces from movies and TV series alike. And if you are an avid movie fan and sitcom fan like me, you will be counting the familiar faces from the start of the movie right up to the very end. Kevin Sorbo (playing Sal Bando/poolboy) was actually doing a great job in the movie, and it was great fun to see him in a role such as this. But that they had managed to get Danny Trejo to play the villain, that was just off the charts. Thumbs up for that.

"Poolboy: Drowning Out the Fury" is a lot of laughs and is actually good entertainment. And the absurdity of the in-your-face-oh-so-fake feeling of the effects and props, well that was just hilarious. Watch this movie if you are a fan of the "The Naked Gun" comedy genre, I am sure you will love this movie too.

As a side note, it should be said that there is a bit of nudity and usage of adults-only material for some of the gags in the movie. So if you are easily offended, just a heads up on that account. There is also a lot of racism in the movie, but it is done in a hilarious way, so you can't help to laugh at it, because it is so absurd.

I liked this movie, especially because it made me laugh this much.

"Poolboy" is not a well made movie. It is not well acted, well written, nor well directed. You could call it crap and few could argue. And yet, underneath all that crap there is a bizarre kind of brilliance at work here. "Poolboy" is not a good movie, but I loved it.

The plot, what little there is, concerns a Vietnam vet coming home to find his wife and child murdered by an evil pool boy and LA over run by Mexicans (it's as racist as it sounds, but I'll get to that later). Overcome with grief, the Vet goes on a one man rampage against the evil Mexican pool boy cartel.

The story is utterly ridiculous and even less coherent than it sounds since half the film is made up of fake 'making-of' footage. It all congeals into a sloppy mess of rapid-fire (often vulgar) sight gags. Those easily offended by nudity, violence, blood, gore, and nearly non- stop racism need not apply. Those with a mind for it will find a frequently hilarious film that hearkens back to the glory days of old-school Troma movies (think "Toxic Avenger" or "Troma's War").

I said the film was not well acted before, but that is only half true. The actors act poorly, but they are clearly supposed to be acting poorly. The kind of over-dramatic, over-acted nonsense that is intended to compliment the ridiculous story. In that regard, they actually act pretty well. I'm a long time fan of Kevin Sorbo, but I surprised to see just how well he handled absurdist comedy. Danny Trejo also puts in an extremely funny performance as a kind of anti-thesis to his character from "Machete". The rest of the film is loaded with actors who deserve credit for going along with the ludicrous nature of the film.

The dialogue and filming are much the same as the plot and acting; they are poorly executed, but that is the point. The dialogue is often (though not always) hilarious and the direction has a rushed, film student quality to it that would seem amateurish if it wasn't clearly the intended look for the movie.

As much I liked the film, not everything worked for me. The biggest problem is that with many films of it's type, they rely on quantity over quality for the gags. About half the jokes fall flat, but at least the other half hit the mark. Also, the film is EXCEEDINGLY vulgar. Hardly 30 seconds can go by with some form of cursing, bloodshed, or racist material being shown. I'm not offended by explicit content, but after a while I wanted the movie start being more clever and stop being graphic just for the sake of being graphic.

All things considered, I thought "Poolboy" was a hilarious film, but definitely not one for most people; consider watching it with friends and a six-pack for maximum effect.

I watched this movie at a friend's tonight and I can unequivocally say that his is one of the most satirical movies...ever! It is smart (a number of self-referential levels, as well as allusions to other, commercially "good" (i.e. "popular") movies and TV shows: Rambo, Airwolf and the The Deer Hunter comes to mind. "American ideology" is deconstructed and re-imagined as (alter)native; the nativity of a clown.

But it's also so stupidly bad at the same time, you would sometimes forget you're watching a satire.

It's either brilliant or the worst movie ever.

I think it's both: watch it!!!

Poolboy 2 is a sarcastic mockumentary, in the style of Garth Merenghi's Darkplace (cue blood).

The premise is this: a rich, eccentric heir of ten years old gets to write, direct and produce his own movie.

The end result is a hodge-podge affair, littered with obvious gaffes: support crew visible in shots, smoking uncut cigars, camera crew visible in reflections, telephones still ringing after they've been picked up. The whole movie is a joke, which is precisely as it was meant to be (clueless reviewers take note).

While not as smart as Darkplace, it is certainly as silly. The random voice overs (the censors were adamant all references to witchcraft were removed) in particular were often hilarious.

For the people that still don't get it: this is a movie that was made to look bad. In fact it was made to look absolutely terrible _on purpose_. Please don't review this movie with silly comments like 'the acting was awful', of course the acting was awful, it was supposedly directed, written and produced by a 10 year old! This is all obvious to the majority of people with a sense of humour but I will state it here for the few that still don't understand: the terrible editing, the ridiculous plot, the never ending stream of racist vitriol: these were all deliberate.

TLDR; Ridiculous movie based on a ridiculous premise. Lovers of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace will see obvious similarities here and will most likely have a fun time. If you don't like or understand comedy or sarcasm then don't bother. If you are overly sensitive to racist comments, you will also want to give this a miss.

A parody, of a documentary, on a movie that due to the themes in the movie was cancelled 20 years ago. Starring Kevin Sorbo. Right at the get go I'm sold.

Mix in a bunch of action, cheesy effects and acted acting, drugs, dark themes and a kick ass weapon (a scoop net with a blade at the net and a knife at the end of the shaft) to name a few things and you get an in-your-face B-movie comedy.

How do you review a movie that constantly walks the lines of absolute balls to the wall comedy, constantly breaks the fourth wall and makes really bad puns? Well, like any other movie I would guess. But to be honest, this is one of the funniest movies that I've seen in recent times. It's just stupid enough, and has more than enough intelligence to realize that it's stupid to make it enjoyable. The setup is amazing, and the ridiculousness of the setup to the movie makes it perfect as a B-movie. It shouldn't be considered a B-movie just because it has a low budget, the majority of the movie is actually funnier than a hundred new A-movies that has a lot of money attached to it. The writing really puts it over the top, kudos to Ross Pattersson.

To be even more honest a review doesn't even give this movie the praise that it deserves. Even though this movie has bad ratings it deserves a whole lot more credit than people are giving it, or rather denying it. Just watch it, broaden your perspective, bro.