Director Macon Blair is a patron saint of fringe-dwelling weirdos, crooks, dreamers, losers, and strivers. And as with his previous films, I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore and The Toxic Avenger, he crafts an ode to their ridiculous idiocy, frustration, anger, generosity, and capacity for change with The S--theads.
The tale of two doltish strangers brought together to complete a mission they immediately, and repeatedly, bungle, the writer/director’s latest Sundance Film Festival-premiering feature is a delightful film about the dim-witted and the disreputable. And though its humor ultimately wanes, it compensates with a surprising measure of tenderness.
The first of The S--theads’ title characters is Davis (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), whose job at a local Virginia church comes to an abrupt end thanks to his decision—decried by his pastor (Killer Mike)—to take a busload of children to see the movie Antichrist. That Davis assumed Lars von Trier’s sexually explicit provocation was a religious film is dumb if somewhat plausible. Yet less understandable is his decision to stay even after the first on-screen appearance of a “dong.” For his faux pas, Davis is kicked to the curb, where he sheds tears that convey that, despite a lack of good judgment, he still has a kind heart.
Less compassionate and altruistic is Mark (Dave Franco), who thinks that it’s perfectly acceptable to spend his workdays at his telemarketer gig drinking, vaping, and watching online bum-fight videos. When he’s unceremoniously canned, his fury is an additional indication that he’s an entitled ne’er-do-well, convinced that his bad behavior is fine and that any infringement upon it is an outrage.
His response to unemployment is to get rip-roaring wasted, and while buying liquid marijuana and pain pills from his dealer (played by the director, Blair), he hears about an open position as a private transport agent whose responsibility is to drive men and women to rehab.
The owner of this business, Ms. Dorindo (Grace Junot), doesn’t think much of Mark, and not just because his neck tattoo of a devil is a giant red warning sign. Nonetheless, she pairs him with Davis on an assignment to take billionaire’s son Sheridan (The Black Phone’s Mason Thames) to a facility. And since Davis’ truck is unavailable, they have to travel in Mark’s beat-up sedan.
Their ride is a clunker by any measure, and it looks even worse cruising through the gates of Sheridan’s residence, an opulent mansion where an employee has them sign papers, leaves Sheridan in their care, and tells them to “be careful”—an ominous warning about the teenager that instantly makes sense when he pretends to flee and causes Mark, who’s in pursuit, to twist his ankle.
Whereas Davis is even-tempered, patient, and charitable, Mark is a loose cannon who talks about taking no you-know-what from their passenger. His inappropriateness is limitless; at the start of their journey, he chats up Sheridan about the reason he’s going to rehab—to which the kid says that it’s not about drugs—and then engages him in an inappropriate conversation about substance abuse. That Mark and Sheridan both arrogantly believe the rules don’t apply to them is plain as day, although Davis’ articulation of that fact doesn’t sit well with his comrade, who bristles at everything about the religious do-gooder.
Franco and Jackson’s rapport is so loopily hostile that The S--theads earns multiple early laughs, and it hits its bonkers groove once Mark’s car gets a flat tire (a mishap which he blames on Davis driving over a parking lot’s broken glass) and they have to delay their trip and stay at a motel. There, the cunning and conniving Sheridan notices that Mark, returning from buying sodas, is high as a kite, and he sets a plan in motion that begins with messing with his zonked-to-the-moon caretaker via hilariously random questions (“Hey, is this room getting smaller to you?”) and nonsensical comments (“And think about all the dogs!”).
Over the past decade, in projects like 21 Jump Street, Neighbors, and The Studio, Franco has proven himself as a talented comedian with a knack for out-of-bounds lunacy. And he turns Mark into a sidesplitting figure of brash inanity, acting the fool at every opportunity. His mischievousness is the catalyst for much of The S--theads’ hijinks, and Jackson is a suitable foil who’s also not above clownishness in service of their characters’ undertaking.
Their odyssey hits even larger potholes after Sheridan tricks the stoned Mark into ordering him an exotic dancer and, once she (Kiernan Shipka) arrives, he drugs his transporter so heavily that the consequences are disgustingly, riotously explosive.
With a devious twinkle in his eye that he frequently masks with puppy dog looks, Thames’ Sheridan is a cocky problem, and at the motel, Mark and Davis discover that he’s famous, courtesy of both his wealth and the in-your-face, unapologetic misconduct he advertises all over the Internet, complete with a headline-making incident in which he lit a homeless man on fire for kicks.
This ups the stakes of Mark and Davis’ errand, yet The S--theads coasts along on the same goofy wavelength as the duo temporarily lose Sheridan, hang out at Shipka’s stripper’s home (with her grandmother, whom Mark takes a liking to), and orchestrate a snatch-and-grab kidnapping.
The first half of Blair’s latest is so funny that it raises expectations for its home stretch. Unfortunately, The S--theads can’t quite meet the moment. Once Franco and Jackson’s protagonists reacquire Sheridan and resume their trek, the film grows a bit monotonous, struggling to drum up the same out-of-left-field absurdity with which it commenced.
Even the appearance of Blair’s The Toxic Avenger star Peter Dinklage and Succession’s Nicholas Braun as rural criminals intent on earning millions by freeing Sheridan from his captivity doesn’t help. Regardless of that pair’s game efforts as deranged hillbillies, the material’s energy stagnates, and a climactic bout of clumsy violence fails to jumpstart the action’s engine.
In its final moments, however, The S--theads recovers its wit, all while expressing a hopefulness about down-on-their-luck doofuses’ potential to grow up, make something of themselves, and find community and purpose.
Not that Blair cares much about messaging; at his finest, he’s a writer/director who understands the trials and tribulations faced by the marginalized and moronic. And more importantly, how to turn them into the stuff of knuckleheaded comedy.
