Hey folks, Harry here... We've had nothing but positive notices on RUN RONNIE RUN thus far... People hailing it as the second coming of the film comedy... some liking it as just a fun comedy. Well now we have the review from the joe that wasn't laughing. The one that thought it was tired and stretched out material.. Just to show there is always two sides to everything... here's Mr Anderson...
Harry-
This is in reply to Phil Connors and his report on the recent test screening of the Mr. Show movie "Run Ronnie Run" which was perpetrated on many willing and unsuspecting victims on Tuesday the 10th of March, 2001 in Westwood, Los Angeles, California at the Mann Regal cinema.
I am an enormous fan of Mr. Show. I love Mr. Show more than my parents. Run Ronnie Run took that love and threw it back in my face. It mocked me for being a faithful follower. Far from being a comic masterpiece, this film betrays its loyal fans by creating a 90 minute ass-dragging narrative around a bunch of recycled Ronnie Dobbs sketches that were funny when they first appeared on HBO. The material that they add to this old & tired mix is a groan-worthy blend of fart jokes and other low (and on the whole poorly written) gags.
I'm particularly reeling over the unoriginality of most of the "jokes" the filmmakers seem to see as deft, hilarious, and entirely original. The best of these seems to be the running gag with Ronnie's friend, Clay, getting seriously hurt over and over and over and over again. Wait, don't start laughing yet. He doesn't just get seriously hurt - he gets seriously, seriously hurt! In the end, he's in an iron lung! Get it!? Obviously, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross enjoyed Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda as much as the rest of us.
I wanted to like this film. But the boys obviously learned nothing from the mistake called "Brain Candy" which happened all the way back in 1996. In it, sketch comedy troupe The Kids In the Hall learned that by removing the "sketch" from "sketch comedy" and instead creating a 90 minute story, much of what made you interesting and innovative in the first place is lost in the stagnate translation.
Just because someone can sustain an entertaining sketch for five minutes doesn't mean that they can make that sketch just as funny when it's an hour and a half long. Didn't we learn anything from It's Pat or Night at the Roxbury?The good news is that there is the occasional funny bit (I found the return of R&B sensation Two Times One Minus One particularly amusing and thus was momentarily distracted from the rest of the mess). Other than two or three flashes of brilliance, Run Ronnie Run sputters, wheezes, and stalls on it's way to a mirthless conclusion that consists of a fight scene that (get this!) sends up the Matrix! Woo hoo! I mean come on! Something here just stinks of Mel Brooks. And I don't mean funny Mel Brooks either. It's more like Dracula: Dead and Loving It Mel Brooks. You hear me.
It's obvious that Phil Connors likes what he likes and his choice of Groundhog Day as one of his favorite comedies seems to imply that he doesn't mind sitting in a theater laughing at the same joke ad nauseum. I find it to be depressing. For everyone else out there who was a fan of Mr. Show, beware. This is not the movie you are hoping it will be.
Hopefully they'll test this to some audiences that don't consist of just the die hard fans of the show.The Westwood screening seemed to consist of mainly fans of the HBO series and a few people who seemed unhappy and lost. There was laughter. But the laughter Mr. Connors was hearing was merely the nervous chortles of fans like myself who didn't have the heart not to appreciate the film with the two stars sitting three rows behind us.
Thanks for your time,
Mr Anderson
