The lead characters of this movie are smart - this much is readily apparent early on. I get it.
What I don't think anyone involved in this movie gets is that "smart" and "not funny" are not mutually exclusive.
The characters in the movie are smarter than the people they encounter - great. How do they wield it? By lording it over them; it's like shooting fish in a barrel. Only someone extremely insecure would take pleasure in this. Descriptions of the Tucker Max character as being a sociopath are not an exaggeration. The problem is that - unlike No Country for Old Men or The Shining (also featuring sociopaths)- this is supposed to be a comedy.
In addition, for all the talk of the realism of the dialog, it just sounds fake. All the clever diatribes and snipes one after another just seem like things you wish you'd said after the fact.
Movies are supposed to be about escape and I just couldn't relax into a world where this guy gets away with so much crap and basically walks away unscathed, having learned nothing.
What I don't think anyone involved in this movie gets is that "smart" and "not funny" are not mutually exclusive.
The characters in the movie are smarter than the people they encounter - great. How do they wield it? By lording it over them; it's like shooting fish in a barrel. Only someone extremely insecure would take pleasure in this. Descriptions of the Tucker Max character as being a sociopath are not an exaggeration. The problem is that - unlike No Country for Old Men or The Shining (also featuring sociopaths)- this is supposed to be a comedy.
In addition, for all the talk of the realism of the dialog, it just sounds fake. All the clever diatribes and snipes one after another just seem like things you wish you'd said after the fact.
Movies are supposed to be about escape and I just couldn't relax into a world where this guy gets away with so much crap and basically walks away unscathed, having learned nothing.