CHEECH & CHONG'S LAST MOVIE - Mark Reviews Movies

Cheech & Chong's Last Movie, Keep Smokin'

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 24, 2025

Creative partnerships have an unfortunate habit of collapsing. Perhaps that's because such a relationship isn't simply business or personal but some strange combination of both. Cheech & Chong's Last Movie makes that clear, as Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong explain how they came to know each other so well through creating comedy, found mutual success in the business side of their collaboration by sticking together, and inevitably split once each of them perceived some professional development by the other as a kind of personal insult.

It's genuinely strange to think that two men who made a career out of playing laid-back characters, coming up with various comic bits with the aid of recreational drugs, and just looking as if they were having the time of their lives while performing in a recording studio, on stage, or in front of a camera could wind up having such a turbulent relationship. This is probably the best evidence, though, that Marin and Chong's most famous characters, a pair of stoners who barely seem to comprehend the trouble they get into, were just that—characters. It's tough to imagine the Cheech (or "Pedro") and Chong (or "the Man") of the duo's movies arguing about anything beyond one of them forgetting to pass a joint to the other.

Marin and Chong, of course, have put some of that old animosity aside for various reunions, although none of them, it seems, has been as significant as David Bushell's documentary about the two comedians and actors. In it, we get to watch Marin and Chong, as they so often did in their previous movies together, drive around, talking and joking about whatever comes to mind. The framing story has the two men, playing or just being themselves, in the desert, looking for a mysterious place called "the Joint" after being invited by the pal Dave, who definitely isn't here.

It's not the funniest story or bit from one of the duo's movies, but it is fair to say that this is the best film the two have made together. It's coherent, for one thing, as the two narrate their lives separately and together, but it is funny, as well, because Marin and Chong are just naturally funny guys. Without the pressure of trying to invent some wacky plot and a bunch of gags, we get a sense of why the two worked together as well as they did—until they didn't, obviously.

The road trip story offers a bit of comfortable familiarity, but it's real purpose is just so that Marin and Chong can tell their stories. Bushell has basically made a straightforward biographical documentary with this film, but letting the two subjects' personalities come through while telling that narrative is vital. Personality goes a long way.

Here, it takes us through the usual stuff, as Marin explains his childhood, first in South Central Los Angeles and later in a suburban neighborhood, and how his overbearing father got him questioning authority and a lot of bullying classmates got him using humor as a defense mechanism. Meanwhile, Chong tells of growing in an impoverished neighborhood in Canada, discovering music, and dropping out of school to pursue a career as a musician.

Their paths would cross completely by chance, after Marin left the United States for Canada to evade an authoritarian change to the draft during the Vietnam War and Chong discovered an affection for improvisational comedy. All of this is presented by archival photos and documents, as well as crudely animated re-creations that feel as if they fit right into the relaxed tone of the film. After a couple of other creative projects that both participated in fell apart (including a comedy revue at a strip club Chong partially owned, which ironically became too successful a comedy endeavor to make the club any money), Marin and Chong were basically the last two left with any interest in continuing to perform comedy.

The story of their shared career as a comedic duo isn't just a highlight reel, either. Yes, there's plenty of footage from stage shows with various sizes of crowds and from their movies, but there are also interviews with the pair throughout that period, as well, starting with one host of a TV show being unable to determine but exclusively focusing on each man's ethnicity and taking us through to the height of their fame. The road-trip story eventually plays off the biography, too, as Chong's ex-wife shows up in backseat to correct him on the course of their marriage, his current wife plays a hitchhiker, and Lou Adler, the record producer who got the duo a recording contract and financed (not to mention officially directed) their first movie, appears to show that there are no hard feelings among the men for what was in that contract in the first place.

In other words, the framing device becomes a vital and surprisingly moving part of this documentary, because it makes the film more than just a lengthy piece of nostalgia. It's also about Marin, Chong, their lives, their relationships, and their opinions of their careers and each other in the here and now. Yes, all of this happened. It was good, until it wasn't, and because it wasn't at some point and for a couple of decades beyond the ending of their partnership, what should they do about all of that now? If we believe the promise of the title offered by Cheech & Chong's Last Movie, it's a fitting final cinematic ride and a nice bit of hope that their relationship isn't going to end with this movie.

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