Metacritic Film

Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland

Starring Vince Vaughn, Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst, Sebastian Maniscalco, and Peter Billingsley

MPAA RATING: R for pervasive language and some sex-related humor

Picturehouse
Adventure
100 minutes | Color
USA
Released In Theaters February 8, 2008

Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show chronicles the journey of Vince Vaughn and four stand-up comedians as they traverse the country performing in a live variety show. In the spirit of the Old West variety shows, Vaughn plays host to the ensemble of comedians and performs improvisational sketches with surprise celebrity and musical guests. Vaughn handpicked four national comedians from Los Angeles’ world famous Comedy Store—Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst and Sebastian Maniscalco—to perform on the tour. The film provides audiences a rare opportunity to experience Vaughn and his team as they travel over 6,000 miles across the heartland of America and perform 30 shows in 30 days. Traveling to cities that don’t ordinarily attract this type of entertainment, Vaughn and his team bring their unique styles and perspectives to regional audiences throughout Western, Southern and Midwestern states. Through rousing onstage performances and behind-the-scenes interviews, this engaging film breaks down the true essence of each comedian’s life-altering experiences and the personal and professional challenges that will unite four comics, one movie star and legions of fans from Hollywood to the Heartland. (Picturehouse)

DIRECTED BY
Ari Sandel

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

51 / 100

Critic Reviews

75 Chicago Tribune Sid Smith
Native Chicagoan Vaughn remains enigmatic, protected from the camera’s more candid intrusion. But you get a sense of his deep values, virtuous instincts and quiet love of ordinary people.
75 Rolling Stone
It's a mouthful of a title for a rowdy, ramshackle funfest that flies by on its spirited humor and surprising heart.
75 TV Guide
The end result is an entertaining tour film.
75 San Francisco Chronicle
A funny comedy, and sometimes an even better drama.
75 Miami Herald
This engaging documentary is briskly funny.
70 Los Angeles Times
Surprisingly endearing and chock-full of a genuine appreciation of the moment.
70 Washington Post John Anderson
A very engaging trip along the cutting edge of America's funny bone.
67 Entertainment Weekly
Has a loosey-goosey, what-the-hell spirit that's easy and fun to hook into.
67 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Travis Nichols
Though you might expect a film of a bunch of performers on a bus to explode with camaraderie and high jinks, the Wild West Comedy Show offers only standard patter about how hard it is for four dudes to share a bathroom, a map graphic between scenes, and one -- just one! -- priceless moment.
63 Boston Globe
The movie's amiable, impulsive, intense, and scattershot, and since those are qualities associated with Vaughn himself, in the end it's a fair representation.
63 USA Today
Vaughn could have used an editor, but Wild West still is a romp with a likable bunch.
58 Portland Oregonian
It's almost like you're watching a 100-minute trailer for a much better six-hour miniseries.
50 New York Daily News
Wild West Show would have really been something if Vaughn had taken a few of his fellow Frat Packers with him - say, Will Ferrell, Jack Black, Ben Stiller and Steve Carell - instead of the struggling unknowns.
50 The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Audiences can watch any number of similarly talented comics on late-night television or, even better, get close to the action at a downtown comedy club.
50 Chicago Reader
A good concert film might have been culled from Vaughn's 30-date LA-to-Chicago tour in September 2005, which showcased stand-up comedians Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst, and Sebastian Maniscalco and included bits with Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Dwight Yoakam, Justin Long, and Keir O'Donnell. But this is more like a DVD extra for that film.
50 Philadelphia Inquirer
Intermittent moments of mild amusement ensue.
50 The New York Times
Though it includes some moderately funny snippets of actual performances, Wild West Comedy Show is not a concert film. We never see a complete performance or even a quarter of one.
50 The Hollywood Reporter John DeFore
Shot on sometimes lousy-looking video, it seems unreasonable to ask audiences to pay to see this picture on a big screen. But "Wild West," particularly with a bit of editing, would be a standout on cable, where shoddy production values would be eclipsed by some very funny material and the emcee presence of a sometimes charismatic (and sometimes obviously road-weary) star.
50 Variety
Ungainly titled, overlong, intermittently funny.
50 Village Voice Robert Wilonsky
The doc provides plenty of backstory (meeting the comics' families offers generous context to material heard earlier in the film). But in the end, it's the bits involving Vaughn and his celeb guests that linger.
40 Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
Onscreen it all plays out like some sort of self-coronation, a celebration of the boy Vaughn’s rise to the heights of superstardom.
40 New York Magazine
It was undoubtedly a great experience for everyone involved, and the show itself might have been a romp. But as a movie, Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show makes you think of the days in which troupes that didn’t deliver were run out of town, bullets pinging off their heels.
33 The Onion (A.V. Club)
West is heavy on Vaughn, at least initially, but woefully short on comedy.
25 New York Post
A 2 1/2-year-old collection of mediocre stand-up routines and dull backstage chatter, Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show demonstrates why comedy clubs require you to have a couple of drinks.

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