Between Two Ferns:
The Movie – 4 out of 5
I love the Funny or Die shorts for Between Two Ferns. It rides that line of uncomfortable comedy so
well as it is mean-spirited but naïve enough for it to have a sort of
innocence. I never believed that there would
be a movie made from it but, sure enough, Zach and director Scott Aukerman
brought one to Netlix. Recently, I
checked it out and the Between Two Ferns: The Movie delivered!
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| Fun Made Up Fact: There is a fern hiding in every shot of this film. |
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| The movie opens with the death of Matthew McConaughey. I want to be a celebrity just to be in a movie playing myself and where I die. |
Zach Galifianakis hosts a small public access show called
Between Two Ferns but most of his viewership comes as a response from Funny or
Die owner Will Ferrell uploading it to his site. The move makes Galifianakis and his show a
viral hit and the laughing stock of the internet. In an effort to restore his reputation and
possibly guide the whole situation into a legit late night talk show, he takes
his assistant Carol (Lauren Lapkus), his cameraman Cameron (Ryan Gaul) and his
sound engineer “Boom Boom” (Jianvani Linayao) and hits the road to interview
huge celebrities and show Ferrell that he has what it takes to be a host.
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| In case you're new to the world or have just escaped the underground bunker that you were being held in, this is Will Ferrell. |
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| Sweet 'stache, Gaul! |
Basically, if you like the Funny or Die shorts for this
property, there’s a good chance you’ll dig this. It’s completely absurd but, in my opinion, in
all the best ways. The humor might be a
little mean-spirited for people because Galifianakis goes for the jugular in
the “interviews” but considering that they are “in” on the joke it didn’t ever
get uncomfortable to me. There were
moments that I was shocked by the jokes being stated but they always ride that
line of being edgy without being an Edgelord’s definition of edgy and they
rarely go for the low-hanging fruit of racist and sexist material.
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| They're here to change the world! |
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| I love Keanu Reefs. |
What’s truly impressive about this production is the cast
and the massive amount of celebrities in the film being interviewed. The core cast of Galifianakis, Lapkus, Gaul
and Linayao are great and provide tons of funny scenes on the crew’s journey
but there are also a ton of terrific improv performers filling up the side
roles and the other people the crew comes across. Players like Mary Holland, Matt Besser, Paul
Rust, Paul F. Thompkins and many more show up to add to the hilarity. Finally, I was just blown away with all the
celebrities that appear in this feature.
To name just a few there is Awkwafina, Chance the Rapper, John Cho,
Benedict Cumberbatch, Peter Dinklage, John Hamm, Keanu Reeves,
Tessa Thompson, Matthew McConaughey and Paul Rudd—and that is just me naming a
small percentage. All of these celebs do
a tremendous job at playing off of Galifianakis in his interviews and being
played off of. Add in some great editing
that perfectly captures reactions and timing and it results in some wickedly
hilarious stuff.
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| I'm not a weirdo or anything but I wanna be best friends with Paul Rudd... or to become him. |
Between Two Ferns: The Movie has the potential to overstay its welcome with some viewers
since there is no denying that this is basically an internet short stretched
and padded to be a feature length film.
Sometimes when this is done the result is boredom for me but this one
managed to avoid it and never felt like it was just beating a dead horse. I found it funny the entire running length, I
loved the cast and had a great time with the celebrity cameos. Overall, I found this to be a very
entertaining film.
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