Review: Macgruber

MacGruber was pretty good, for what it was. I know that term is constantly being used to answer for the fact that the critic is talking about the four hundred and twelfth movie of the year they've felt nothing much about, but it seems to fit McGruber especially well. Who is expecting a comedy classic out of McGruber? No one. If you've seen the sketch, you might imagine that a lot of the running time will be devoted to stupid, insensitive, crude jokes, some of which might be funny. You'd be dead on.

MacGruber isn't awful smart, or ambitious, but it's pretty well aware of this. Unlike, for instance, Talladega Knights, that indulged it's every even minor quirk as fodder for the longest stream of jokes possible, Macgruber knows what it's material is actually worth: a cringe and maybe a laugh. It's lowbrow, and it knows it, and that's all it's got. That can be fun, right? Unless it gets crass or mean spirited, sometimes it's fun to sit with an audience emberassed and amazed at what's goin on on screen. I must concede, personally, that it can be, as at least three times was I curled over dieing with laughter.

A lot of it's jokes are to be laughed at, rather than with, in the same sense that the faces your friend made across the classroom are to be laughed at rather than with. The punchlines most often come on downbeats, so its quiet, and you're trying not to cut loose what may be a less than gorgeous explosion of laughter. And others are too. And the punchline keeps coming. And it's funny. Make no mistake, it's an R rated movie, and it's no comedy classic, but neither is it the crudest or least funny movie ever. And it flies by. I liked it, for what it was.

6/10

By Dave Beauchene