By Robert Scucci
| Printed
Tim Heidecker and Eric Warheim deserve all of the respect on this planet for being so fearlessly prolific with their comedy, and personally, I feel they’ve cracked the code. By releasing a lot content material into the wild and continually gearing as much as work on their subsequent challenge, Heidecker and Warheim are capable of rejoice their victories and proceed to take wildly formidable inventive dangers once they hit it out of the park. Nonetheless, inventive dangers like Tim & Eric’s Billion Greenback Film are simply that … dangers.
And within the case of this film, the chance doesn’t actually repay, even once you actually, actually need it to. I’m not saying that Tim & Eric’s Billion Greenback Film doesn’t have some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments, however as their function directorial debut it’s an absolute mess that tells me they should refine their strategy to moviemaking sooner or later as a result of it performs out prefer it’s caught in a sketch comedy format that doesn’t essentially lend itself to longer works.
We Purchased A Mall!
Tim & Eric’s Billion Greenback Film has a easy sufficient premise, however rapidly devolves into a multitude of interconnected tales with among the most repulsive characters you’ll ever witness. Taking part in fictionalized variations of themselves, Tim and Eric are proven previewing Bonjour, Diamond Jim, a film they produced after being given a billion-dollar manufacturing price range by the executives of the Schlaaang Company. Having spent a considerable quantity of the price range on mistakenly paying a Johnny Depp impersonator (Ronnie Rodriguez) to star within the movie, in depth cosmetic surgery makeovers so they may look extra “Hollywood,” and blowing the remaining on frivolous bills just like the $500,000-a-week wage for his or her private shopper and non secular guru, Jim Joe Kelly (Zach Galifianakis), Tim and Eric are solely capable of produce a three-minute function, which incenses Schlaaang executives.
Now personally chargeable for paying again the mortgage, Tim and Eric have to provide you with a billion {dollars}, and quick. After seeing a industrial produced by Damien Weebs (Will Ferrell), the proprietor of the S’Wallow Valley Mall, Tim and Eric have purpose to imagine that they’ll be paid the precise amount of cash they should get out of their sticky state of affairs– despite the fact that Weebs can’t assist however compulsively wink every time he says he’ll pay them a billion {dollars} to take over his failed purchasing heart in Tim & Eric’s Billion Greenback Film.
An Awkward Comedy Goldmine, However …
Deciding that they’re now businessmen, Tim and Eric watch Prime Gun in its entirety (twice) with Damien Weebs earlier than signing the contract that states they’ll quickly be very wealthy males in Tim & Eric’s Billion Greenback Film. That is the extent of their negotiation and gross sales pitch, by the best way.
Shortly changing into entangled in a love triangle with Katie (Twink Caplan), and dropping sight of the numerous renovations they should make, Tim and Eric work with the sickly Taquito (John C. Reilly) of their efforts to reopen the mall and begin raking within the dough. As enjoyable as this principal story might sound in Tim & Eric’s Billion Greenback Film, it rapidly pivots into an odyssey of gross-out comedy that may make your abdomen churn within the worst approach doable.
From Eric’s non secular therapeutic on the Shrim Different Therapeutic Middle that includes mendacity in a tub filled with human excrement to Tim’s Spanish fly switcheroo that results in one of the vital disturbing love-making sequences you’ll see in your life, Tim & Eric’s Billion Greenback Film loses the plot as a result of these sequences aren’t obligatory to maneuver the story ahead, and don’t fairly land as successfully because the awkward humor that Tim and Eric are recognized and celebrated for. I’m not saying there isn’t a time and place for over-the-top bathroom humor, but it surely feels misplaced on this film.
And that is coming from someone who steadily spins Tim Heidecker’s Urinal St. Station, a whole Southern rock album dedicated to the fun of consuming sizzling piss with unthinkably excessive manufacturing values and top-notch musicianship to drive the purpose residence.
Streaming Tim & Eric’s Billion Greenback Film
In the event you’re a fan of the numerous unhinged mental properties that Tim Heidecker and Eric Warheim have their names connected to, you might take into account Tim & Eric’s Billion Greenback Film to be a worthwhile watch. On the finish of the day, this title may be very a lot a Tim and Eric outing, and there’s no approach to escape their subversive humorousness, even when they sometimes miss the mark. You’ll discover all the standard trappings you’re acquainted with, just like the extreme use of low-budget filming strategies that resemble these poorly produced commercials on public public entry tv that you simply unwillingly watch whereas in a state of sleep paralysis– questioning if what you’re seeing is definitely actual, or a figment of your warped, slumber-induced creativeness.
Sadly, these sequences are higher left utilized in short-form comedy as a result of it’s an absolute assault on the senses in each conceivable approach on this context.
Whereas actually not the duo’s best hour, Tim & Eric’s Billion Greenback Film is price muscling via for those who’re already a fan of their work. But when that is your first time stepping into their warped world of surreal comedy, I’d counsel sitting this one out and watching Tom Goes to the Mayor as an alternative.
As of this writing, you may stream Tim & Eric’s Billion Greenback Film at no cost on Tubi.
