My Review of "A Futile and Stupid Gesture"

A Futile and Stupid Gesture is a very interesting movie based on the life of Doug Kenney. For those that don't know who Doug Kenney is, don't worry I didn't even know either. It's in fact probably better that you don't know who he is before you go watch it. When I went through this movie I was hit with twists and turns that I didn't expect because I didn't know about Doug. I'm sure this movie is even more entertaining if you knew who he was prior to watching this movie.

This movie starts and ends at random but rest assured the whole thing actually makes sense. It's pretty surprising too because they go through his life to explain his motivations.

Basically Doug had actually went to Harvard university to obtain a degree in English. While he was there he met up with his good friend Henry Beard. Him and Henry were party animals in Harvard and organized some of the wildest parties of the university.

When they were about to graduate Doug would try to convince Henry to create the National Lampoon brand with magazines, radio shows and movies. I won't tell you what happened between the two but I'm sure you've probably heard of the brand National Lampoon.

You've probably also heard of the movies Animal house and Caddy Shack. They were actually written by Doug. Who would have thought? I had no idea. There's a lot in this movie that opened up my eyes. Doug was actually really big at one point. He was the king of comedy for that moment. That's why I was really curious why I haven't heard of him. All is explained in this movie.

There are so many special guests in this movie because Doug basically discovered pretty much the whole cast from the first season of Saturday Night Live. They didn't have the actual actors playing themselves because that would probably pretty weird. Instead they had popular comedic actors of today portraying these comedians.

Some of the portrayals were pretty dead on. They hit on the mannerisms and the voices pretty well. I was stunned with some of them especially Erv Dahl's Rodney Dangerfield and Joel McHale's Chevy Chase. They were dead ringers for their work as their aforementioned portrayals. I was actually really shocked how well that they did their impressions.

The most important thing about this movie was that it felt very honest. They showed the good and bad side of Doug. I didn't know who Doug was but I thought Will Forte was probably the best choice to portray his character. He made Doug seem like a likable guy with some deep flaws. I think he does that a lot in many of his roles. This role just suited him very nicely.

There is a bit of a generational gap with some of the jokes that they had in the 70's and 80's but they were able to minimize the niche jokes that that were probably huge in those times to cater to the masses. That was a pretty smart decision as some of the jokes back then don't really translate well today. Even the narrator acknowledges the sexism and racism of the past.

Overall, I had a surprisingly good time watching this movie. I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I thought it was a comedy and it is but it's also so much more to it than that. It's an exploration of Doug's demons and mental health issues. I'm sure no one thought of those things back in those days and we see how hard it was to deal with those issues alone. I'm going to give this movie a 7.5 out of 10. I would suggest this movie to others. It might not be for everyone but it's worth checking out if you need something to watch.