Reviews by Matt

Wow.

Movies these days suck.

This past weekend I had the choice of seeing “Fools Gold” or “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins.” I am not paid enough to see Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson fall in and out of love or Martin Lawrence be “funny.” I chose the other alternative, or at least the one that was mildly interesting. That happened to be “Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights-Hollywood to the Heartland.” A movie with a title so long it takes longer to order the ticket then it does to watch the movie.

“Wild West” is a documentary about four comedians (Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst and Sebastian Maniscalco) as they Vaughn and special guests do 30 shows in 30 days and travel across the country.

For being a movie about comedians, there is very little time devoted to stage performances. The real focus is on these four guys and their lives in and out of comedy. Each comedian is given a segment to talk about themselves, their comedy, where they get their material and their struggles, both personal and professional.

Some of the most interesting parts were not even about the comedians. The tour took place in mid-2005, just before Katrina hit Louisiana. They had to cancel a few shows in the devastated part of Louisiana and moved them to a different state (Kentucky, I think). Vaughn set aside 250 tickets and told the comedians to go to a national park where some of those displaced by the storm were staying. They even offered to provide busses to and from the show.

After the show Vaughn talked to a few of the people who came to see them. They were extremely grateful and where happy to get away from all the pain and heartache for a while and just laugh.

From a comedy standpoint the movie had a lot of really good laughs. The one who stood out was Caparulo. He sounds a lot like Larry the Cable Guy, but is smarter and funnier.

The human look at these guys made their material funnier. It gave the audience a look into who they were and what go them to that point. It was a nice change of pace to the what I usually see each weekend.

7 out of 10
Rated R for pervasive language and some sex-related humor.
1 hr 40 mins