Held Up

The next time I feel the need to explain to someone why I don't like "comedy" films, at least now I can cite this movie as the quintessential example. You know what's funny? Life is funny. Literal clowns are hard to relate to unless you're 6 years old, because many adults tend to be grounded in reality, and based on the rating, a lot of people seem to agree with me here. This type of comedy, it's like a little kid jumping up and down yelling "Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!" It's just a self-indulgent club-you-over-the-head aesthetic that tries too hard. To put it simply, there is a lot of comedy that fails, where you at least respect the ATTEMPT. Here it's impossible to respect the attempt, because it's so self-fellating.

A drama movie with comedic elements. THAT'S funny. If you look at how Judd Apatow movies tend to rate, a lot of people agree with me there too. So, why is that relevant, and who cares if anyone agrees with me? Well, to put it in standup terms, if you're performing live, and only 20% of your audience thinks you're funny, while the rest think you're awful, guess what. You're bombing. That's why you can't package your fetish comedy into a feature film, and expect any degree of resonant success. In a feature film, you're not just performing to YOUR audience... EVERYONE sees it, and sure, of course, whether or not your comedy is GOOD, really doesn't rely on playing to the room per se, but either way, you can't JUST be playing to yourself, which is how this film feels to me.

Now, does that mean a bunch of comedian friends can't get together and just make a silly movie? Of course not, and that's where the term self-indulgent comes in. This is a passion project; a home movie. It's so incredibly awful. I'd say it's objectively awful from a comedic standpoint. EVERY single line doesn't have to be an attempt at a joke. If done properly, the JOKE is made much much funnier by the straight elements: the basic straight man/funny man dynamic. You really do have to take your foot off the gas at times.

I need to at least on SOME level believe the characters and the scenario for it to be situationally funny. Otherwise, in a way, it's like the film is making fun of itself, which it literally does quite a few times. In the end, it's just a very BAD parody of a heist film, which WOULD have been funny if that was their true focus, and it doesn't seem like it was. I don't think I laughed even once when watching this. The closest I came to laughing was the "sexy" shot where they try to showcase the EXTREMELY average looking female bank robber as some sort of hot luscious $ex object. This is conceptually funny in a fairly basic way by parodying perfect Hollywood aesthetic with the mundane.

In the end, this really is just such a white yuppie comedy, to the point where I actually feel bad for the black guy in this film. It's just such cornball puerile dreck. The only good thing I'll say about it, is at least it's not pc. There are lot of non pc racial jokes in this. They even used a lot of the forbidden no-no identity politics words that would get you blacklisted if you used them in 2023, even in a comedic context. Just hearing those in a film, even a garbage film such as this one, at least made me feel good in a very subtle way.

If nothing else, at least this film is genuine... a genuine pile of garbage that ISN'T so bad that it's good, and here's the perfect example to drive my point home: Tommy Wiseau's "The Room". You think it would still be funny if he was legitimately TRYING to be funny. Of course not. The context is what makes it funny. Sketch comedy just doesn't work well when packaged as a feature film. Sorry, just my opinion, and that of a lot of people.

This movie came on my cable movie channel and I put it on mistakenly believing that I was going to see 30 Minutes or Less, which, in itself I doubt is high brow humour, but at least that film probably contains some laughs. While I can't say that I made it longer than 15 minutes into this movie, there was absolutely nothing funny on the horizon when I did throw in the towel so I think 15 minutes was enough to give me the big picture. What I did see in 15 minutes was terrible acting, writing, and painfully unfunny jokes. If the-thing-I-was-watching (I refuse to call this a movie actually) suddenly improved dramatically after 15 minutes, as some have claimed, then perhaps the writers can learn a thing or two about pacing, but from the level of humour on display in what I did see, I would have to say that I find that hard to believe.

Simply awful sets the bar about right.

I was really disappointed this movie. I wish i could get my money back. It was so painful i couldn't watch more than 30 minutes. I'm not sure if it was the bad storyline or the bad acting but i feel violated for watching it. I didn't think it was funny at all. I think it's the worst movie i've seen in a long time. All i can say is it's crap. How can a movie like this make it into redbox. Redbox you should be ashamed. The whole cop thing with the budget cuts...really??? And they let them hold up in a bank for a week...come on... a week. Seriously. And the lead actor, he tried to be funny but just wasn't. I went in with high expectations and was let down. I looks like it went straight to video and skipped the theaters. That's no surprise.

I love Jon Dore, so I had to watch this movie. At first it seemed dumb and a waste of my time, but I decided why not. In the end I am glad that I watched the movie.

Having so many popular comedians just made this movie a hilarious. I recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys comedy. So if you don't enjoy comedy stop watching comedic movies and rating them low...

Jon Dore is amazing! The Sklar twins are amazing. Kaitlin Olson is pretty funny. Cyrus Farmer did a bad job at acting. Samm Levine was not a likable character at all. Steve Agee just made the simple parts extravagant!

This movie isn't going to win any awards but it has some genuinely funny scenes. The acting is... well the script is... um alright but honestly it does have some pretty funny scenes every 10 minutes or so. The reason I'm giving it a 6 is I went in with crappy expectations and found myself laughing more than I expected. Some of the background characters I remember from other TV shows and feel just sort of good to see them working. Even if they have no real lines I feel good just thinking to myself, "hey isn't that the lesbian from that Silverman show". Silverman, I wonder what she's doing these days. You know that reminds me that "I'm bleeping Matt Damon" video was pretty funny, I should you tube that.

If you've had a couple cocktails then you will probably like this movie. And if you like It's Always Sunny then you'll dig Kaitlin. It's not the best, not the worst, but descent.