X
- 2018
- TV-MA
- Netflix
- 1 h 41 m
- 2018
- TV-MA
- Netflix
- 1 h 41 m
Summary A Futile and Stupid Gesture is the story of comedy wunderkind Doug Kenney, who co-created the National Lampoon, Caddyshack, and Animal House. Kenney was at the center of the 70’s comedy counter-culture which gave birth to Saturday Night Live and a whole generation’s way of looking at the world.
Directed By: David Wain
Written By: Michael Colton, John Aboud, Josh Karp
- 2018
- TV-MA
- Netflix
- 1 h 41 m
- 2018
- TV-MA
- Netflix
- 1 h 41 m
A Futile and Stupid Gesture
55
6.6
Where to Watch
Summary A Futile and Stupid Gesture is the story of comedy wunderkind Doug Kenney, who co-created the National Lampoon, Caddyshack, and Animal House. Kenney was at the center of the 70’s comedy counter-culture which gave birth to Saturday Night Live and a whole generation’s way of looking at the world.
Directed By: David Wain
Written By: Michael Colton, John Aboud, Josh Karp
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 15 Critic Reviews
55
40% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
53% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
7% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 15 Critic Reviews
55
40% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
53% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
7% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Even if the casting choices in portraying some of iconic talents in Kenney’s orbit are occasionally questionable — a detail the film gleefully acknowledges — there’s something delightful about watching actors known for comedy now try to capture the sound or energy of the performers who inspired them.
This is quite possibly the most self-referential, inside-jokey, look-at-how-clever-we-are, off-the-charts Meta Movie I’ve ever seen. Sometimes that’s pretty great. At other times, it detracts from the core story at hand.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 30 User Ratings
6.6
57% Positive
17 Ratings
17 Ratings
37% Mixed
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
7% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 30 User Ratings
6.6
57% Positive
17 Ratings
17 Ratings
37% Mixed
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
7% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
A movie I was expecting to just be a slapstick cameo fest is actually a really funny but also surprisingly dramatic and heartfelt. It is an amazing film. Will Forte is great here, as is all the other actors playing their respective roles. By the end, you truly feel like you know the man that is Doug Kenney.
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Fun, stupid, boobs, farts, butt stuff, awesome. What more needs to be said?
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Of all the impersonations, Thomas Lennon‘s spot-on send up of the balding, sunglassed cynic Donaghue is the one that dazzles. Matching Belushi’s fearless lunacy or Chevy Chase’s studied pratfalls is trickier on even a “generous” Netflix budget.
Perhaps fittingly given the downturn in the repetitive final act, over the long haul the joke starts getting old in every sense.
While there’s a bit of hero worship going on that deflates the piece, and Wain’s direction is surprisingly uninspired, the biggest problem is the script that tries to cover too much ground but doesn’t really have that much to say as it does so.
Maybe this is exactly the biopic that Kenney would want, silly and bittersweet and laced with regret. Unfortunately, the film is just good enough to convince us that he deserved better.
Wain made a terrible mistake when he decided to turn Kenney’s story into a goof, a sketch, a riff of threadbare mockery, instead of treating it as a relatively straight movie with laughs. If he had done that, it might have been hilarious, though in an acidly downbeat and far-reaching way.
This film hit me straight in the heart and the funny bone. Creative retelling of Doug Kenney, whom I really didn’t know, and now understand not only a piece of who he was but so many things I have to be thankful for. The directions was inventive, the writing original and the production beautiful. I took a point away for the wigs. The wigs were terrible.
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A fair retelling of the Doug Kenney story. You won't get encyclopedic details on his life but enough to let you know how influential this guy was. I think it nails the fact that sarcasm was just a way of life. The impersonations of the famous people that grew out of this scene were terrific frankly.
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As with most founders of counter-cultures, Kenney is a largely unknown figure these days. And seemingly, the film posits, with good reason. Kenney is played unlikable, sarcastic, erratic and extremely unsympathetic... which is apparently quite true to life. If it weren't so light on legitimate laughs, it may be worthy of the original Lampoon.
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