★★½ (2½ out of 4)
Dude, Where’s My Pizza? Now that would be a more accurate title for this stoner buddy comedy that’s high on its own shitfaced supply. Having premiered last month to impressive buzz at the South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW to those in the know), “Pizza Movie” finds its way to Hulu this week where it trippily rewards all your lowest expectations.
Gaten Matarazzo, coming off nine scene-stealing years as Dustin on “Stranger Things,” puts his goofball energy to good use as Jack, a born loser to campus jocks who enjoy farting in his face. The same goes for Montgomery (Disney star Sean Giambrone), Jack’s roomie and fellow victim in the halls of rampant social backstabbing. Monty looks like a douche in front of Ashley (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), a cute girl he wants desperately to impress.
It really hurts when Lizzy (Lulu Wilson), a geek pal to our heroes, joins the bully squad. Resigned to never getting laid, the boys are about to give up when a rescue literally falls into their laps in the form of a moldy tin of mints—it says M.I.N.T.S. right on the box. There are also video instructions from a former dorm resident (Sarah Sherman) that M.I.N.T.S. stands for “Mind Igniting Neural Tuning Stimulants,” a high-powered hallucinatory drug that will give these losers a mind-blowing night to remember.
One catch: this acidy mint trip will blow their heads clean off unless they take the only known antidote, which is—wait for it—pizza! No problem then. Jack and Monty hit the mints, order the pizza and then wait for delivery. What a shame they’re so zonked out by then that when a robot delivers the life-saving combo of cheese, tomato and crust, our dopehead duo can’t get down two flights of dorm stairs to retrieve it.
Not to worry. Writer-directors Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher (known as BriTANicK) are blissfully unbothered as they fire every joke, one-liner, sight gag and surreal image at the screen, hoping they’ll stick. Aside from the blood and vomit spray, a lot of them do, which helps. There’s even a bit with Daniel Radcliffe as a talking butterfly.
Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone lead a stoner buddy comedy that’s high on its own shitfaced supply. What’s not to like?
Best known for their sketch work on “Saturday Night Life” and Comedy Central, BriTANicK makes the short form its bitch. And Matarazzo and Giambrone make sure the energy level goes all the way to 11.
When the laughs start evaporating in the final stretch, the movie cuts to the writer’s room where McElhaney and Kocher meta-worry over every detail, including the lousy title, which they always meant to be temporary. I’m kind of pleased that it stuck. Matarazzo and Giambrone are hilarious when they realize swearing causes their heads to explode, leading to a comedic blast when their G-rated words keep coming out as four-letter blasphemy.
Maybe the best way to catch the essence of “Pizza Movie” is to paraphrase that James Franco speech from another stoner comedy, “Pineapple Express”—“This is like if ‘Superbad’ met ‘Midnight Run’ and they had a baby and then meanwhile that freaky Quentin Tarantino talk from ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘True Romance’ met that freaky Judd Apatow TV stuff from ‘Freaks and Geeks’ and ‘Undeclared” and they had a baby, and by some miracle those babies met —and fucked—this would be the funny shit that they birthed. “
Exactly. “Pizza Movie” asks only that we join in the fun even when the plot spins out of control. In comedy, coherence has never been a match for chaos. Matarazzo and Giambrone know this in their bones. Not only are they double dynamite, but they also make you believe there’s a real bond between these lost boys. And that makes all the difference.