6/10
Douche Be Not Proud
5 May 2022
It's always fun to watch a movie filmed on location in a place that you're familiar with. All the more when that place is Brooklyn.

It is safe to say that most of the movies I start these days, I do not finish, and safer yet to say that I was quite surprised to make it to the rolling of the credits for How To Be A Man.

Within the first thirty minutes I could make out a solid (if absurd) plot, a charismatic lead, strong writing, and at least two corners I had puked into in recent months (RIP Trash Bar).

HTBAM is more or less a stand up comedy routine in the disguise of a movie, showcasing the comedic stylings of the film's lead, Gavin McInnes. Gavin is a force, and carries 92% of the weight of a production that could likely have not been made possible without him.

It was good enough that I later did some research on McInnes, and found that he had written a book titled 'How To Piss In Public'. I bought it, read half of it, and that was good enough for me. There is some arguably interesting stuff in there, particularly for those that might hold 80-90s American punk history at all nostalgic. But I'm not here to sell books.

Less than one month after watching HTBAM, I bumped into Gavin himself at the corner of N5th and Bedford Ave., in the heart of Williamsburg. I give him a hearty hello, praised his fine work, and we ended up chatting for nearly thirty minutes. I still have a series of selfies I took of the two of us in that span, including one of him kissing me on my cheek with his greasy yet perfectly manicured handlebar moustache.

And that was that. Until...

Three years later I was living in Arizona, and the story of how I met this no-name star of this forgotten movie came into conversation at a party. When I mentioned Gavin by name, one person in attendance uttered something along the lines of, "holy sh#t", you made out with the founder of the Proud Boys." I had no idea what that meant at the time. But I do now.

If you're fortunate enough to subscribe to the 'death of the author' philosophy, then you might be able to enjoy this genuinely funny film, starring the human personification of a leaky douchebag.
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