An ‘Idiots’ Guide to a Warm and Witty Road Trip

A comedy written and directed by Macon Blair, “Idiots,” is an amiable and engaging road movie that recalls any number of precedents including O. Henry’s homespun morality tales, the backwoods gothic of William Faulkner, and the hard-boiled cynicism of Sam Fuller. You could throw the Coen Brothers into this melange, but Mr. Blair is, as a filmmaker, less brittle in his affectations. The guy’s got a heart: “Idiots” is a warm movie. It’s outrageous and scatalogical without being gratuitous, stupid, or mean. The first character we meet is Davis (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), a disarming lummox whose intentions are golden but whose follow-through is invariably misguided. After having shepherded a group of congregants to a local cinema, he’s called into the office of Pastor Mike (“Killer Mike” Render of the rap duo Run the Jewels). Woe betide Davis for mistaking Lars Von Trier’s “Anti-Christ” (2009) as spiritual entertainment suitable for adolescents. When Pastor Mike cites a particularly egregious scene from the film, a stunned Davis responds that the explicit moment in question “was the editing, it was all in your mind.”Mr. Jackson plays the scene with consummate understatement and to hilarious effect. Mr. Render is also good as an outraged clergyman. “Idiots” is, in fact, filled with performances that are bang-on in terms of how over-the-top personages can navigate a naturalist milieu. It takes talent to take on the guise of an idiot, and the casting crew haven’t missed a beat. Jeffrey C. Wells and Dana Elaine are on screen for only minutes as authority figures of wildly disparate talents, but they make an impression. So, too, does Lynn Wanlass as a spicy old lady–a predictable type to which the actress brings considerable verve.After Davis is given the heave-ho by Pastor Mike, he heads to his day job at a sketchy transportation business helmed by an imperial India Worsham Dorindo (Grace Junot, another standout). The gig this time around is to transport a pampered rich kid, Sheridan (Mason Thames), to a rehabilitation clinic out in the sticks. India saddles Davis with a partner in this task, a freshly fired telemarketer, Mark (David Franco). Will things go awry with a fervent Christian at the wheel and a drug-addled ne’er do well riding shotgun? You might as well ask if Peter Dinklage is convincing as a delusion-riddled deplorable.Which he is, of course, but not before we find out that Sheridan has amassed a huge internet following for being a flagrant and sometimes pathological brat. He’s smarter than either Davis or Mark, and manages to thwart their mission by slashing the tires of the duo’s hunk-of-junk car and then spiking their generic colas with laxatives and psychedelics. The results are, to put it mildly, explosive and mind-expanding.At one point, Mark hires a stripper, Irina Anastas (Kiernan Shipka), being under the mistaken assumption that Sheridan is unacquainted with the pleasures of the flesh. Suffice it to say that no dunder-headed deed goes unpunished in Mr. Blair’s universe and hell hath no fury like a sex worker scorned. Things get even more complicated when Sheridan sends out an SOS on social media, and is rescued and subsequently kidnapped by a motley crew that includes a camouflaged Koko (Mr. Dinklage) and Pricka Bush Da Werewoof, a genuinely unnerving character embodied by an unrecognizable Nicholas Braun, late of “Succession.” All the while, Davis asks for the Lord’s help and Mark learns to use a seatbelt.At the time of this writing, “Idiots” has been on the receiving end of some tepid reviews for reasons that have more to do with the know-it-all ennui of critics than with the qualities of an immensely well-crafted, inordinately funny and sweetly humane film. “Idiots” is nothing new under the sun and funny as hell. Ask which is more important, innovation or pleasure, and dole out the ransom money accordingly.

An ‘Idiots’ Guide to a Warm and Witty Road Trip

An ‘Idiots’ Guide to a Warm and Witty Road Trip

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