A comedy that lacks humor.
A band called Bad Math have just agreed to sign to a major record company and decide to party in celebration of their final success. The record company exec, is expected to turn up at the party and get the guys to sign on the dotted line.
But the next thing they know, a dead man is floating in the pool, the house is practically wrecked and the record company guy is missing. Unless they can remember what happened, it’s adios muchachos to going on tour. To remember they must get shit-faced again. Then the cops show up!
- The Blackout
- Directed by
Matt Hish - Cast
Michael Graziadei, Scott Rosa, Flood Reed - Release Date
1 September 2013 - Ed’s Grade: D+
First, I’d like to start off with the good points to The Blackout. Sorry, I meant to say good “point,” as in singular. The Amy Winehouse joke. Okay, that was easy. Let’s quickly move on. The Blackout is a combination of Almost Famous and The Hangover, with the latter being where the influence and inspiration clearly came from. Very, very, very clearly. In fact, they share the same number of letters in their title.
The acting was mostly even by the main participants and had the actual film been any good, the acting might have appeared even better. But sadly, it wasn’t and they didn’t. The characters could have been fleshed out a bit rather than being these sad, one-dimensional, walking cliches.
The premise is so much like The Hangover trilogy, that they basically begged to be compared to that successful franchise. I wonder how that’s working out for them?
*****
Now, this is Keith Brown’s first script attempt, and it did have a lot going for it, but basing it on such well-known films is asking too much of people’s humor, in my exceedingly humble opinion at least. Ably helmed by first time feature director Matt Hish, who had his work cut out for him with this weak and unfunny story, yet appeared to do the best he could. Even experienced hands would have had a difficult time getting this script to work. There wasn’t one iota of originality in The Blackout to make it stand on its own two shaky feet, and even with some passable performances, it was ultimately all for nought.
By the way, if you’re far too young to see this film, and haven’t seen The Hangover yet, then you might actually like this movie. Even with all of my concerns, it is still a watchable first effort. It just isn’t particularly funny, which I find helps in comedy flicks. Quite a bit, as a matter of fact.
