Vaughn’s Comedy Show a Funny Tour
In the Fall of 2005 Vince Vaughn, arguably the biggest comedy star in the world what with the massive success of The Break-Up, Wedding Crashers, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story and Old School, decided to embark on an unprecedented comedy tour featuring four stand-up comedians from Los Angeles’ renowned Comedy Store. What followed was a 30 shows in a 30 nights odyssey that defied any and all conventional wisdom, this series of improvisational sketches, surprise celebrity guests and good old-fashioned stand-up spanning North America from one coast to the other.
Ahmed Ahmed , Peter Billingsley, Vince Vaughn, Sebastian Maniscalco, Bret Ernst and Kier O'Donnell in Picturehouse's Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show
Oscar-winning filmmaker Ari Sandel (2007 Best Live Action Short Film, West Bank Story) documents this journey in Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights – Hollywood to the Heartland, a wonderfully funny and surprisingly endearing documentary feature I thoroughly enjoyed. Mainly focusing on the lives and careers of the four comics; Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst and Sebastian Maniscalco; at its center, the film is a raucous and invigorating ride first frame to last, and for a year so far barren of almost anything surprising (Cloverfield aside) this one is truly an invigorating kick in the pants.
Needless to say, don’t go into the picture expecting your standard stand-up piece a la Delirious or Richard Pryor: Live in Concert. Sandel is far more concerned about the behind-the-scenes then he is with what is going on in front of the curtain. He dives full-on into all four men’s lives, opening them up and showing them for who they really are warts and all. He brings to life the creative process gurgling inside all of them and the pressure they put upon themselves to get it right night after night, even bringing their family lives into the picture giving them all a back-story more complicated then I ever would have imagined.
Don’t take this to mean he forgets about the show entirely. There’s plenty of stuff going on upon the various stages the crew find themselves on from Los Angeles to Little Rock, Tucson to Chicago. Ahmed cracks wise (and openly) about being a Muslim in a post-9/11 America, Caparulo verbally machine guns his way through set after set, Maniscalco rails against flip-flops and Ernst finds the tender hysterics in the death of his beloved older brother. Nothing is off limits and out of bounds for these guys, and even when the audience can’t seem to get enough of them the harshest critics they can’t ever seem to completely please ends up being themselves.
I must admit, there were things I wish Sandel’s film did better. The month-long trek these guys spend on the bus doesn’t hold much weight, while the scenes of Vaughn doing some improvisational shtick with guest cohorts like Jon Favreau, executive producer Peter Billingsley, Justin Long and Keir O’Donnell is never as amusing as I think the comedians all seem to think it is. More, at just over 90-minutes the film still somehow feels a bit padded, a few too many dry spells during the middle third slowing things down far too much for my taste.
Still, this is a very good film and an exceedingly entertaining jaunt inside the comedic mind. Even better, its message of hope and happiness in the midst of great tragedy is absolutely exhilarating, watching the comedians deal with Hurricane Katrina and its devastating toll as eye-opening and emotional as any you could possibly imagine. “It’s really great to have a job that’s cathartic,” says Caparulo at one point, and watching the smiles cascade down the faces of the refugees as they enjoy him perform I’m not about to disagree. To my mind, this is one comedy tour well worth taking.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
Additional Links:
- Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show Theatrical Trailer
