Saxondale

Saxondale only lasted for a couple brief seasons a few years ago, so I don't think many people have ever heard of it. My only exposure was in an interview with star Steve Coogan on Top Gear, which featured a clip from an episode featuring a character who was obviously based off Jeremy Clarkson. And the show is about to disappear from Netflix streaming (I don't even want to talk about today's Qwikster announcement), so even fewer people will have the opportunity to be exposed to it. Which is a shame, because while the show is a bit too slight to be truly great, it does feature one of the best characters I've ever seen in a comedy. Coogan plays Tom Saxondale, an aging pest controller who used to be a roadie for bands like The Who and Deep Purple (but not Led Zeppelin) and now bides his time as best he can. He has a pretty simple life, living with his heavyset girlfriend Magz and his teenage assistant Raymond, trading barbs with the agency rep who gets him extermination jobs, and going to anger management classes.

It's a pretty basic sitcom, with Tommy occasionally getting into trouble or delicate situations and having to work his way out of them. What's remarkable about it is just the character, who's a perfect storm of performance, writing, and makeup. The character is a complete transformation from Coogan's regular look, and it's well worth watching the show just to see what they do with it. Tommy is kind of a dick most of the time, often handling adversity poorly and feeling the need to control every conversation he's in. He's remarkably well-read and eloquent despite his appearance, but that just increases the know-it-all douchiness he frequently projects. At his core Tommy is still a good guy, though. He's faithful to Magz, he tries to use his authority properly when he has it, and he gets along well with people who don't annoy him, or who he doesn't annoy too much. It's the difficult balance between being a funny jerk and still being a likable person that the show usually nails, and makes the character so intriguing. There's only 13 episodes, but that just might be the right amount of exposure to the character. More shows should explore their concepts as well as Saxondale does without coming close to wearing out their welcome.

The Other Guys

Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay continue their fruitful partnership of serviceable and occasionally brilliant but often flawed comedies with The Other Guys, a send up of buddy cop movies (which are themselves already pretty silly in nature) with an odd sense of humor and an even odder political stance against the seedy nature of big money in America. The bad guys in the story are basically using fraud to cover up losses, and the entire end credits of the film feature animated information about things like how Ponzi schemes work and the average salaries of CEOs in comparison to regular workers over time. This is probably the wrong movie to throw an issue like this into, though I appreciate the effort.

The movie starts out bombastically with a ridiculous car chase through New York City as Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson attempt to stop some drug dealers. It's one of the most wonderfully absurd action scenes played for laughs I've seen, and it's a great start for the movie. I would watch a whole film about Johnson and Jackson as these superhero cop characters. But it's not about them, it's about the other guys, played by Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. Ferrell plays a number cruncher and paperwork doer who'd rather stay in the office than chase bad guys, and Wahlberg was a promising young cop who had his career derailed after he shot a famous athlete. They're mostly the subject of ridicule, but they see an opportunity to make a big case after they arrest a businessman played by Steve Coogan and he is then kidnapped by armed thugs. People with money don't like Ferrell and Wahlberg sniffing around their affairs, and they are harassed at every turn by their fellow cops and other things working against them.

The structure of the story could have pretty much just been a regular buddy cop movie, but it's the specific weirdness of the situations and dialogue that make it a Will Ferrell comedy. The film just comes up with a ton of running gags and lets them ride, and some of them end up being pretty funny. Some of the better ones include all the horrible things that happen to the interior of Ferrell's Prius, his dark past, and Wahlberg's habit of studying fine arts so he can make fun of people who enjoy them. Some bits are weirder; Ferrell's innate attraction to beautiful women is cute but offset by what's basically an emotionally abusive marriage that's played for laughs.

Ferrell's mix of low key and very loud methods of being funny are in full effect and enjoyable as usual, and while I would say Wahlberg definitely isn't a natural comic actor (or a natural actor at all, really), his hit rate on one liners is generally pretty decent. Michael Keaton is great as the police captain, and his role is another I'd love to see revisited in a Rock/Jackson prequel. The movie is overstuffed to the point of bursting with recognizable comedic talent, and most of the cameos usually have at least one decent joke attached instead of just being their for their own sake. Ice-T's narration in particular is memorable. Not every joke is a success and I would have preferred a less self-serious plot, but it was a pretty fun movie.

Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder is another solid action-comedy hybrid for this summer. The concept is fun, it's about the actors in a big-budget Vietnam movie getting stuck behind actual enemy lines in the jungle. Ben Stiller, who also co-wrote and directed, is the action hero, and the last one to figure out that it's all real. Jack Black is the low-brow comedian (quite a stretch) who has a drug problem. Robert Downey Jr. is terrific as the foreign thespian who never breaks his character as a black soldier. He's quickly become one of my favorite actors in the last couple years, and he's the best reason to see this. Tom Cruise appears as a vicious studio mogul, and he's mildly entertaining, but I thought his performance was over-hyped just because he's Tom Cruise. Other big names play small parts, and a huge portion of the movie's humor is the jokes about the movie industry, especially the politics with the Academy Awards. Downey's speech about Best Actor nominations is one of the funniest things I've ever heard about Hollywood. The film also begins with fake ads and trailers featuring the characters, and it sets the tone quite well.

Besides all the meta-jokes though, it's still a fun movie. The movie has the most fun with gore that I can remember seeing since the Monty Python movies, and it's a sort of gross-out humor I like more than just bathroom stuff. Not everything in the movie succeeds, but it's crass and silly enough to be fun without thinking too much. The movie does a lot to offend different groups like the mentally challenged, and just doesn't care about it. It's all just comedy, and doesn't step lightly. There's some good silly action-dialogue and pointless explosions going around everywhere, and the pacing of the comedy and violence are pretty good. Stiller's act is a little tired at this point, but I thought this was a pretty decent return to form.