Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Rob Corddry is one of the best things about THE DAILY SHOW. Of course, almost everything about THE DAILY SHOW is great, so saying that is like saying he’s extra-great, or super-hilarious. I didn’t realize this film was a mockumentary, or that Corddry was the star. Consider me sold. I must see this immediately. Especially after this review...
I got invited to see Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story in LA at the AFI Film Fest and didn't know what to expect. I knew Rob Corddry from "The Daily Show" was in it but didn't really know anything else about it other than it was supposed to be a mockumentary about playing paintball. After all the Guest films (of which Guffman, to me, is the only really funny one), I went in not expecting much so was really surprised to have it rock.
Story goes that Bobby Dukes, a famous paintball player, gets kicked out of the league for "wiping" away a paintball hit during some big championship match 10 years ago. In disgrace he disappears and becomes a leper in the paintball world.
10 years later he comes back and enters the tournament again. But no one wants to play with him because he's considered a loser. So he has to put together a team of misfits to get into the tournament.
First thing noticed about the flick was the familiarity of the actors with each other. There are no "names" in the flick (other than Corddry whose obviously known from "The Daily Show") but they all seemed to work really well together. According to the director, Brant Serensen, a lot of the film was improvised after giving the actors direction and a storyline ahead of time. While you could definitely feel the looseness of the piece, the storyline flowed solidly and never felt like it was stapled together out of luck. It has a solid throughline that never wavered.
I'm not sure who deserves the most praise for that, Sersen or the cast, but I'd say both because it all comes together really well. (During a Q&A after the viewing, Sersen said they're all affiliated with each other from a comedy improv thing called The Upright Citizen's Brigade in NYC and those relationships seemed to pay off pretty well for them.)
It's a standard story about a guy who screws up and has to earn his way back the hard way but the fun came from watching the situations the actors were put in and how they shaped the story.
Corddry's Dukes is obviously the center of the story and he does a fantastic job keeping the whole thing focused. After only knowing him from TDS I wasn't sure how he'd play but a lot of TDS alum have really done well for themselves (Steve Carrell owned The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Lewis Black kicked ass on a recent "Law & Order Special Victims Unit") so I guess those guys come from good actor stock. Corddry's rock solid and funny.
Corddry shined in that the other actors around him were allowed to make their characters their own in a pretty distinctive manner, but he never felt the need to "one-up" them. As the central focus of the story it's important that he stay an anchor and that's what I think works so well. It would've been easy to go nutso and be "funny guy" but he didn't. The humor comes from his committment to the character and his struggle to regain his good name. He's hilarious in the flick, for sure, but not in a crazy way. I'd say his styling in the role was far more subtle than big and that really worked well.
The teammate chars who shined for me were Rob Riggle as Eddie, an over the top, killing machine paintballer seemingly spawned from a Lee Marvin/WWF wrestler pairing. He was hilarious. Dannah Feinglass as Bobby's sister, Erica was awesome. Seth Morris as a hippy, yoga dude they draft onto the team was also awesome and Paul Scheer as Lenny, a paintball wimp who sort of makes the whole thing happen for Bobby was also great in a very innocent way that led to big laughs.
Feinglass' simplicity and niceness as Bobby's dorky sister worked really well. Especially when a romance blossoms with Lenny. (She's also kind of hot in a weird "dorkess" way.)
It's a pretty standard story we've seen 100 times before in comedies. The "big comeback" story. But it works well in Dukes because of the improv thing and the whole mockumentary angle. (Sersen said the script was written but he gave the actors lots of room to improv and create their own stuff along the way which ended up flowing really well.)
The intro scene at the beginning where they illustrate the whole backstory of Dukes' fall from grace by using He Man dolls was hysterical and sets the pace and tone of the piece nicely.
The paintball battle scenes were great because it appears to have been hand held camera work. Never having played it myself, watching the force the paint ball bullets had smacking into inflatable bunker things surprised me. Those bastards must sting.
Apparently the flick did well at a bunch of fests (including SXSW) and had a full audience at The Cinerama Dome in LA where I saw it at the AFI fest. The house loved the flick.
If Super Troopers got a deal and did well (piece of crap to me) I can't imagine this thing not doing well in it's own right.
Sersen did a great job with it off a script or premise (I'm not really sure how much was officially written and how much was improved with the actors) by both he and Brian Steinberg.
Hopefully this thing finds a distributor. It made me laugh. I'm looking forward to the next thing these guys do together.
If you use this, call me, Prince Valiant
Sounds awesome, man. Thanks for the report.
"Moriarty" out.
