105 min.
Release July 3, 2020 (Netflix)
Flown out of an early-2000s comedy when raunch was high on the list and often pushed too hard, “Desperados” does, in fact, feel desperate. This wild girls-trip romp marks the feature-directing debut of LP (Lauren Palmigiano), who previously directed numerous shorts and TV episodes, and while it’s wonderful to have a woman at the helm and working from a script by Ellen Rapoport, women deserve smarter material that isn’t this conceptually outdated and comedically substandard. If it weren't for its less-than-endearing female protagonist, a sitcom-lame setup, and the strident antics and strenuously ribald gags that follow, “Desperados” might look entirely different, and that would have been for the better.
Tired of going on bad dates and failed job interviews to be a school guidance counselor, hopeless L.A. thirtysomething Wesley (Nasim Pedrad) is ready to settle down. After her most recent blind date, Sean (Lamorne Morris), takes “an automatic out,” Wesley leaves the bar, only to trip and bonk her head. When she comes to, attractive, charming and funny sports agent Jared (Robbie Amell) is standing above her and takes her home. All goes well for a month between Wesley and Jared, until she doesn’t hear from him for a week. When her closest gal pals, Brooke (Anna Camp) and Kaylie (Sarah Burns), come over, she drunkenly writes and sends a rude, interminable and certifiably insane e-mail. Right after the e-mail gets sent, Jared calls her from Mexico, where he’s just woken up in a hospital from a medically induced coma after a car accident. So what does Wesley do? Though financially strapped, Wesley convinces her girlfriends to go on a trip to Cabo, stay at the same resort as Jared’s belongings, and find his cell phone to delete her e-mail. Crazy, wildly hilarious hijinks are supposed to ensue.
“Desperados” not only superficially shares a plot hook with 2000’s “Road Trip,” itself a variation on 1998’s Paul Rudd-Reese Witherspoon comedy “Overnight Delivery,” but also makes a trifecta with two more-worthwhile Netflix comedies about female friendship (2018's “Ibiza” and 2019's “Someone Great”). Ellen Rapoport’s script feels like it was written with an algorithm in mind. A single woman hung up on dating and infatuated with planning her future marriage before actually meeting Mr. Right? Check. Two gal pals who live as enablers and sound boards for the lead? Check. A regrettable technology fiasco? Check again. Somewhere along the way, though, it feels like someone decided to shoehorn gross-out gags into the proceedings for terrible measure. Such moments that are played for laughs include Wesley having her vibrator fall out of her bag and picked up by a 12-year-old boy, only to later be mistaken for being a pedophile, and Wesley getting smacked in the face by a dolphin’s penis (just don’t ask).
With the right material, Nasim Pedrad (2019’s “Aladdin”) will get her smart, funny, relatable romantic comedy, but this is not that time. It’s a good thing Pedrad is such a likable and comedically game performer in her own right because she's better than her role. As written, Wesley is a shallow, self-involved, mostly insufferable dingbat who rarely stops talking about the opposite sex. After bombing an interview with a nun at a private school by turning it into an overshare on masturbation, the unemployed Wesley should be prioritizing, focusing on herself, and trying harder to find job prospects, but you know, stopping everything and flying to Mexico to erase a correspondence is way more important. As one does. Also, after meeting Jared, Wesley decides to not talk as much and pretends to be a more appealing version of herself because changing oneself for someone is healthy, mature and not pathetic at all. There’s rarely anything worse in a film than a frustrating protagonist for whom we should be rooting, but Wesley keeps failing us, herself, and her friends. It’s not cute anymore.
“Desperados” only delights when Nasim Pedrad shares scenes with the charming Lamorne Morris (2018’s “Game Night”), as compatible widower Sean who might like Wesley as she is and happens to be in Cabo at the same time during her fetch quest because, well, it's a movie. Pedrad is always giving the strained screwball plotting her all, whether it’s getting electrocuted when climbing over a restricted stone wall or being humped by an aquatic mammal, but she and an appealing ensemble can only elevate so much. When the farcical shenanigans that supersede rational human behavior are more irritating than funny—and rational human behavior might have entirely solved the moronic contrivance anyway—it makes the time getting to the formulaic conclusion far less enjoyable. “Desperados” could be tolerated—or even enjoyed—as a cheerfully undemanding distraction, but when it comes to the crassly unfunny stuff, groans are earned instead.
Grade: C -
Comments
Post a Comment