A comedy movie about an Italian restaurant being used as a front for the mob? Say less. I grabbed my popcorn and headed to the Twin Cities Film Festival’s screening of “Boris Is Dead.”
I pictured a Tony Soprano-esque character in an apron yelling at some poor waiter to get more baked ziti while he kills off another member of the mob. Instead, I got all the gore, all the hospitality industry drama and no comedy.
My biggest gripe was that I genuinely couldn’t tell if this movie was trying to be a comedy or something more — at times, I felt like I was watching “Sopranos,” and other times I felt like I was watching a high school film project.
The movie places the audience directly into Derek’s (Dane Cook) life, as he works as a dead-end waiter at Boris’ Italian Restaurant. However, his boss, Russ (Chris Mulkey), is deep in debt and is stealing money from his employees. As Russ’ ties with the mob become more obvious, Derek and his coworkers step in and try to stop the bloodshed but end up becoming just as violent and money-hungry as the mobsters themselves.
Despite some giggles from the audience — mostly from older folks — the writing seemed generally overdone.
The main character, Derek, sounds and acts like an entitled 15-year-old boy. And no, it’s not just because he still lives with his mom and won’t give up on his dream to become an actor. His relationship with Rebecca (Hana Mae Lee) felt like something I would have heard about at a cafeteria lunch table: he cheats on her, and then she gets back at him by hooking up with his objectively more attractive, “I’m-better-than-you-in-every-way” coworker, Wayne (Jesse Metcalfe). Couldn’t we have gotten a little more creative?
At one point, Derek tells another character to “Lick my big, fat, hairy balls.” I questioned if the poorly-written dialogue was intentional for “comedy’s” sake, or if it was simply poorly written.
Most of the characters said what they were going to do or what they were feeling, rather than letting the plot follow through naturally or actually show it through their acting. It felt like the writers thought the audience was stupid and that they had to spell out every single moment of the plot. Or, that in order to make up for the poor acting, they had to tell the audience what was going on, just to be sure.
The line deliveries were consistently mismatched with the actors’ faces: they say they’re angry, and their voice sounds like it, but their face doesn’t show it, especially for Uncle Tony (Steven Baur). There was no dynamic in this film besides angry, f-bomb swearing about money. Whatever emotional depth they attempted to create felt ingenuine or was drowned out by yelling.
Do not even get me started with Frankie, who kills the most people in the film in a god-awful velvet tracksuit. He tries to play tough-guy, but his acting was so overdone, with pointing fingers and flailing “so-what” arms that made me wish I could’ve taken Boris’ place so I wouldn’t have to see him.
I genuinely couldn’t tell if this movie was trying so hard to be funny that it came off as serious to me, or if I just didn’t get the humor. This seemed like a movie people my parents’ age would like, but for my Gen Z humor, I’ll pass.
The use of Google Slides-esque transitions — at one point a swirly whirlpool emerged out of someone’s face to cut to the next scene — completely took me out of the scene and made this movie feel more like a high school project rather than the polished comedic thriller I think it was intended to be.
Another special-effect flub included one character’s implied schizophrenic hallucinations, which looked like poorly-done Snapchat filters slapped onto the actors’ faces.
The random bursts of visceral gore comparable to “Hereditary” simply felt entirely misplaced for a comedy movie. Was I supposed to laugh as Derek’s coworkers ran over the head of the sheriff who stopped them for a traffic violation after he was shot? Then, to top it off, the director chose to include not one, but multiple shots of what used to be the sheriff’s head, which now resembled scraps from a butcher shop.
Pointless violence represented in movies like this, especially nowadays, genuinely makes me shake my head. Why would someone find this arguably disgusting content funny?
The only part I actually laughed at was when Russ regresses to a childhood version of himself while hiding in a closet and Derek pretends to be his father, scolding him to get the money back.
The last 30 minutes of the film felt directionless as the characters ran around the restaurant flailing their arms and guns about. I actually checked my phone at one point to see when this film would be over, because they needed to wrap it up. With four bodies on the kitchen floor in a less-than-10-minute period, I had seen enough.
I left the theater feeling like I didn’t “get” something, or that maybe the movie was actually funnier than I thought it was. Either way, there was a serious disconnect between what was supposed to be a comedy and what was shown: a gross, unfunny depiction of middle-aged people who make poor financial and career decisions.
I think I would have preferred if Boris stayed alive so I wouldn’t have to sit through this mess.
Grace Woelfel can be reached at woel8456@stthomas.edu.
