I checked this movie out on Netflix based on Rob Corddry's presence and CHUD's positive review. Yeesh. What a waste of time. About the only reaction I had is an increased respect for Chris Guest's films. It's a comedy without any laughs. There are a few moderately funny moments, enough to get me to smile about two or three times, but that was it. It was basically just a couple of moderately funny people put in front of the camera to desperately wing it with no proper planning and nothing to work with.
One big problem is that the film has hardly any well-defined characters. Who is Bobby Dukes? I still don't know. He has no character. I got no vibe off him at all. Rob Corddry plays him as a normal, boring guy. He talks about traveling the world, but nothing really comes of this. There's nothing to this "legendary" guy at all. He's not even given a reason to enjoy paintball. He simply does it because that's what he did 10 years ago, and we get basically no read on the younger Dukes either, beyond that he had hair.
The supporting cast all have one or zero notes. You've got the standard "Kill! Rar!" guy, which is just as generic and lame as it gets. Nothing he ever does is surprising. The actor just throws out nonstop "Rar! Kill!" lines. Some of the characters, like the hippy Canadian who hides his hobby and the cowardly gamer, have concepts that could have been explored for comedic value, but nothing becomes of them. The villain is just a generic jerk, without any interesting or funny quirks. Good comedy comes through character as much as punchlines, and this movie basically has neither.
I remember hearing that Guest filmed hundreds of hours to get 90 minutes of footage. Blackballed looks like a movie Guest would have made if he had gone with the very first take of every scene he shot. It's just a mediocre, unfocused, unfunny movie. It's not annoying or terrible. It's just a bunch of nothing. The only real good part about it is the soundtrack, which is a nice guitar that occasionally fools you into thinking you're watching a movie with something going for it.
One big problem is that the film has hardly any well-defined characters. Who is Bobby Dukes? I still don't know. He has no character. I got no vibe off him at all. Rob Corddry plays him as a normal, boring guy. He talks about traveling the world, but nothing really comes of this. There's nothing to this "legendary" guy at all. He's not even given a reason to enjoy paintball. He simply does it because that's what he did 10 years ago, and we get basically no read on the younger Dukes either, beyond that he had hair.
The supporting cast all have one or zero notes. You've got the standard "Kill! Rar!" guy, which is just as generic and lame as it gets. Nothing he ever does is surprising. The actor just throws out nonstop "Rar! Kill!" lines. Some of the characters, like the hippy Canadian who hides his hobby and the cowardly gamer, have concepts that could have been explored for comedic value, but nothing becomes of them. The villain is just a generic jerk, without any interesting or funny quirks. Good comedy comes through character as much as punchlines, and this movie basically has neither.
I remember hearing that Guest filmed hundreds of hours to get 90 minutes of footage. Blackballed looks like a movie Guest would have made if he had gone with the very first take of every scene he shot. It's just a mediocre, unfocused, unfunny movie. It's not annoying or terrible. It's just a bunch of nothing. The only real good part about it is the soundtrack, which is a nice guitar that occasionally fools you into thinking you're watching a movie with something going for it.
