This film is based on characters from the mid-to-late '90s HBO sketch comedy show Mr. Show, which starred Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. Mr. Show, which I just rewatched in its entirety in the past couple of weeks, has a reputation as being one of the best sketch comedy shows ever. Personally, I wouldn't rank it anywhere near as high as many others. It was far more hit-and-miss than its fans like to believe. For every great sketch, you'd have to suffer through at least one completely lame sketch. That said, when the show did hit upon something good, it was truly memorable. And the Ronnie Dobbs sketches, of which there were two in the show's 30 episode run, are definitely a couple of the best they did. This movie basically retells the Ronnie Dobbs sketches over 90 minutes. And, as Saturday Night Live has proved again and again, what works in 5 minute segments doesn't stretch out well to 90 minutes. But even most of SNL's movies surpass this one (although not It's Pat!). This movie is incredibly unfunny. The only thing that works kind of are a couple of the songs that pop up occasionally. The only other Mr. Show characters that appear in the film are the members of R&B group 3 x 1 1, and that little music video they do was one of the few tolerable things in the movie. Jack Black, who appeared in several episodes of Mr. Show, gets a funny little non-sequitur song that's supposed to have been cut from a Mary Poppins-like movie. And the fat kid action sequence was slightly amusing. The only performer who is consistently entertaining is SNL's David Koechner, who, IMO, is one of the most underrated of SNL performers. Other than that, the film is terrible. Even Bob & David have disowned it, so I would suggest that even fans of the show should just ignore its existence.
Review of Run Ronnie Run
