MacGruber

Based on the Saturday Night Live sketches, MacGruber follows the throat-ripping title character (Will Forte) as he and two associates (Kristen Wiig’s Vicki St. Elmo and Ryan Phillippe’s Dixon Piper) attempt to prevent a diabolical madman (Val Kilmer’s Dieter Von Cunth) from using a pilfered nuke against Washington. There’s little doubt that MacGruber fares best in its early stages, as screenwriters John Solomon, Jorma Taccone, and Forte offer up a knowing, occasionally hilarious send-up of action movies that’s heightened by a consistent emphasis on the genre’s most overused cliches – with director Taccone’s decision to play things straight ensuring that the film initially comes off as a seriously successful parody. It’s only as things get progressively sillier that MacGruber starts to become an unexpectedly tedious piece of work, with Forte’s unreasonably over-the-top performance growing more and more difficult to stomach as the hopelessly thin storyline unfolds (ie what worked in 30 second doses just feels excessive at 88 minutes). The increased emphasis on eye-rollingly broad jokes and gags (eg the celery bit) ensures that MacGruber ultimately succeeds neither as an action flick nor as a balls-to-the-wall comedy, which is certainly a shame given the promising nature of the film’s opening half hour.

** out of ****