|
|
BROMATES
Director: Court Crandall Cast: Josh Brener, Lil Rel Howery, Brendan Scannell, Asif Ali, Jessica Lowe, Flula Borg, Taryn Manning, Nelcie Souffrant, Snoop Dogg, Marla Gibbs, Rob Riggle MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:38 Release Date: 10/7/22 (limited; digital & on-demand) |
|
Review by Mark Dujsik | October 6, 2022 To begin with the good at the start, Bromates features one pretty amusing sight-gag and one very funny throwaway line. With that out of the way, here's a generic but formless comedy about a pair of friends who move in together to get over break-ups. Director Court Crandall and Chris Kemper's screenplay actually begins as the story of a quartet of friends, but whether the result of forgetfulness or a belated compensation for that fact that a comedy about an odd couple living together has been done countless times before, those other two pals might as well not exist in this story. The point is that doesn't bode well from the first act. The best friends are Sid (Josh Brener) and Jonesie (Lil Rel Howery, an actor who seems to appear in a movie every other week or so and deserves it—while deserving much better than this). Sid is dumped by his social media influencer girlfriend (played by Jessica Lowe) for their next-door neighbor, a puppeteer (played by Flula Borg) whose back story is given a horrifying explanation during the end credits for some wholly unknowable reason. Meanwhile, Jonesie has been dumped by his girlfriend (played by Nelcie Souffrant) for cheating on her, while coming up with a terrible excuse for why a stripper is in a sex swing in their apartment. Sid takes his break-up hard, so Jonesie convinces his buddy to move in with him so they can support each other—mainly so Sid can be supported, though. The comedic potential of these mismatched roommates runs dry pretty quickly, after we get that one decent visual joke, involving a condom, a hungry dog, and said dog having some problems with digestive gas. Eventually, the other two friends, Dave (Brendan Scannell) and Mike (Asif Ali), re-appear from an opening flashback (narrated by Snoop Dogg, who promises to show up later and, to the movie's minimal credit, does) so that the four can go on an adventure. Sid meets Darlene (Taryn Manning) at a bar and decides to follow her to Texas for the movie's third or fourth premise—certainly its creepiest. We do get the throwaway line there, at least, which has a character responding to Mike's threat of being the guy's worst nightmare with a succinctly and disturbingly funny description of his usual dreams. It involves clowns, and let's leave the rest of it for the bravely curious to discover. There's more, obviously, and the rest of it is as random and half-considered as everything that comes before it. Brener and Howery do have some amicable chemistry in Bromates, so maybe the filmmakers have unnecessarily gone out of their way to do something less predictable than an uneven pair becoming roommates. Sometimes the simple formulas don't need fixing or, in this case, breaking beyond recognition. Copyright © 2022 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
Buy Related Products
|
(for
crude and sexual content, language throughout and some drug use)
