IDIOTS. The promise of an R-rated, “gross-out” comedy, especially one anointed for theatrical release, is especially tempting (if equally risky) in an era of corporate trepidation and hobbled creativity. What was once a proven, often overly relied-on subgenre has become risky, a niche proposition unlikely to yield the sort of box-office windfall upon which studios have come to rely. The mild transgression offered by such movies having become routine, passé or — in a shocking turn toward the provincial — even distasteful to modern, younger audiences, has recast the once-subversive as unhip and old-fashioned. This may be why I feel inexorably drawn to it.
In the case of Idiots, at least, there is a certain element of skewed academia to the appeal. Multi-hyphenate director Macon Blair (The Toxic Avenger, 2025) has been plumbing the depths of the darkness in action, comedy and drama for a couple of decades now, often in collaboration with Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin, 2013; Rebel Ridge, 2024), and is clearly a fan, as well as a practitioner, of the mid-late 20th century programmers that were so influential to so many of us. His work is fun (and seemingly made for fun, if not profit and glory) but tempered with a comfortingly familiar strain of misanthropy and crassness. He elevates the underdog, but not without illuminating their frequently challenging, off-putting shortcomings.
This is very much the space inhabited by his latest, a road comedy about a couple of sometimes well-meaning losers, thrown together by circumstance and avarice to transport a possibly psychotic rich kid to rehab.
Of the two, Davis (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) would be the ostensible moral center: a kindly, if woefully inept, man of faith who truly wants to do the right thing, despite an inability to figure out what that actually means. His partner Mark (Dave Franco), on the other hand, is essentially a screwup with no prospects, few demonstrable skills and only the most ephemeral shot at redemption.
Which is all well and good, with the unlikely (if well-worn) pairing of opposites providing ample opportunity for roadside blow-ups and druggy pratfalls. But the scenario itself, couched in a sort of humanistic cynicism that fully serves neither the comic nor the tragic, never allows the relationship at its center to grow beyond the chummily abrasive. A road comedy, particularly one that sets out to plumb some of the less pleasant aspects of humanity, needs propulsion: jokes or horrors or both, at regular intervals. Without such frequent punctuation, there must be enough substance to the characters and their relationships to sustain our interest.
Despite overtures in that direction, Idiots unfortunately never fully achieves an effective balance, leaving us, by the end, with a sort of narrative ambiguity that is neither satisfying nor troubling enough to resonate beyond its runtime. R. 98M.
BUDDY. In yet another undeniable demarcation of my advancing years and irrelevance, the matinee crowd for this was more robust than expected, with a median age at least a couple of decades below mine. Which is heartening, in its way: Kids are still going to the movies. And they are apparently surprised and titillated by things I wouldn’t have guessed at.
Buddy, written by Caspar Kelly and Jamie King, directed by Kelly, sets itself inside the world of a late-’90s kid’s show about the titular magical unicorn before eventually expanding its scope and aspect-ratio to include the “real” world of grown-ups and trans-dimensional horror.
Opening with (maybe too frequently repeated) episodes of the show, the movie gradually reveals, primarily through the eyes of young Freddy (Delaney Quinn), that Buddy may not be so friendly after all. After some increasingly troubling incidents within the reality of the show, a group of kids attempt to break out, at which point we are relocated to a world where Grace (Cristin Milioti) is haunted by an absence she cannot define and, before long, ensnared in Buddy’s kandy-kolored nightmare.
For my taste, Buddy is a little all-over-the-shop. The nostalgia of a creepy children’s show is lost on me (while clearly not on the audience I shared the experience with), while the broadened world of violence and supernatural malfeasance is neither fully explained nor terrifying enough to be entirely compelling. Still, I enjoyed the combination of rough-hewn and elevated craft deployed here, and a movie that allows child actors to confront decidedly un-childish things is rare enough to be noteworthy, by that standard alone.
While I wished (as ever) for something genuinely troubling, it was immediately evident that the tone of this piece was spot-on for the target audience with which I was surrounded. Their enthusiasm was at least a little contagious, softening my initial negative reaction, allowing me to (mostly) enjoy Buddy for what it is, rather than what I thought it should be. R. 95M. BROADWAY.
John J. Bennett (he/him) is a movie nerd who loves a good car chase.
NOW PLAYING
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COYOTE VS. ACME. Animated and live-action shenanigans as the coyote gets his day in court. PG. 101M. BROADWAY, MINOR.
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TOM & JERRY: FORBIDDEN COMPASS. Shenanigans in a museum send the duo through a time portal. PG. 104M. BROADWAY.
For showtimes, visit catheaters.com and minortheatre.com.
This article appears in ‘More of the Moment’.