Time to do a bit of recalibrating for this one because, if I judged this film solely on the basis of good taste and common sense, we’re not going to get anywhere with this thing. This kind of uber-macho, “let’s do dumb shit to prove our MAYUN-liness” reeks of critic-trapping, like it actively wants to be judged by politically-correct standards just so the chuckleheads who made it can point and laugh at people taking this ‘too seriously’. And in all honesty… yeah, there’s a place for this kind of meathead comedy in the world: The Jackass films more than proved that point long before this, and for as much love as it didn’t get, I still think the movie Tag is a fun and inventive take on the action-thriller formula. So, rather than act all shocked at how tasteless this all is, let’s instead judge it by its own standards as a bro comedy… and how it still fails from that perspective.
For a start, did the casting director actively look for the least likable people to be part of this? Josh Duhamel, I get, since he’s also director/co-writer/co-producer on this, but Kevin Dillon? Dax Shepard? Nick fucking Swardson?! To quote Dillon himself: “I don’t know who to root for. I hate all of them.” Part of what makes Jackass watchable to this day is that, for as goofy as the crew is, they had personalities that made the increasingly stupid and dangerous shit they put each other through more than generic endurance tests. They also embraced how homoerotic this kind of ‘male bonding’ really is, whereas these guys just kinda-sorta lampshade it with a gay guy in the main group whose one joke is that he’s gay.
Actually, speaking of which, the sense of humour overall is incredibly lazy. If you’re going to bring everyone together to compete in a silly obstacle course, it would’ve been nice to actually… y’know… see it going on? But no, the titular Buddy Games take up a fraction of the run time, with the rest of it devoted to lame-ass double entendres, meta-ribbing on Dax playing a struggling actor (when his previous job description in-film of being “wherever waste develops” is far more accurate; certainly explains CHiPs at least), and some of the biggest missed opportunities I’ve ever seen in a comedy. I don’t normally get to the point of looking for joke opportunities in the films I watch, but with this one, it’s kind of shocking. Like, to the point where they fuck up a Rotten Tomatoes reference. One of the easiest fucking jokes one could possibly make when it comes to discussing movies, and they couldn’t even get that right… fucking wow, dudes.
But how about the actual thematic content (and yes, they actually try for that here)? Well, while it opens with a rather pretentious spiel about physical activity between men and how it builds bonds and lets men get out their everyday aggression, all that does is make this into Fight Club with a head injury, playing all the macho bullshit dead straight and possibly advises to do so. Yeah, in-between the cum-filled pina coladas (I’m guessing they didn’t just call them ‘penis coladas’ because Lil Wayne and Liz Phair would get in a fist-fight over who gets to sue for plagiarism first), the laxatives, the burst testicles, and a random-ass cameo from Jensen Ackles, it ultimately reaches the conclusion that this kind of male-bonding is ideal and in no way psychotic and, more importantly, basic as fyuck.
Yeah, honestly, more so than the macho posturing that only further highlights why this kind of masculine insecurity is so fucking stupid to begin with, it’s the sheer fact that for a shock comedy, it’s not that funny, and it’s so tame as to be… precious. Like, it is adorable what these writers (and most-likely ad-libbing actors) think is boundary-pushing. I get that the fictionalised, ‘we use stunt doubles’ take on comedy daredevil antics was never going to resonate the same as something like Jackass or Dirty Sanchez, but between the lack of personality on screen, the lack of creativity in the set pieces, and the fact that it gets so frequently bored with itself that it suddenly tries to be a creature feature horror flick for literally no reason… it makes me wonder why they even bothered to film anything.
This is basically a Happy Madison production with an ‘edgier’ rating, as it carries the same sense of watching actors kill time and hang out under the pretence of making a movie as something like Grown Ups. Everyone here seems content to amuse themselves, rather than amuse a given audience, making for a film with sporadic laughs (I will admit, there were a couple points where I chuckled, although I’ll be fucked if I can remember why exactly) and messaging that tries for self-aware goofiness but largely ends up in ‘passive-aggressive Twitter bio’ territory. If you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough, and this is Dirty Grandpa levels of weaksauce.
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