Starring Greg Sestero and Tommy Wiseau
It was a frigid evening on Wednesday, Jan. 11 as hundreds hustled to the box office at AMC for warmth and entertainment. People across all generations snagged tickets for a one-night only screening of Tommy Wiseau’s notorious film The Room.
It was packed inside the theater as the electric audience laughed, yelled, and cried at the screen. It was a sold out crowd with dozens of people sitting on the floor to get a glimpse of the chaos that happens for a screening of The Room.
The Room is considered the best worst film ever made. Starring Tommy Wiseau, who directed the feature too, and Greg Sestero, the cult classic still allures thousands around the globe to attend monthly screenings.
Fast-forward to last week and that same magic was expected to return to the screen, but with a twist. For the first time in fifteen years, the hilarious duo of Wiseau and Sestero were reunited in their latest film Best F(r)iends. It screened for one-night only last Friday in thousands of theaters across the country.
Considering the hardcore fans of The Room filled the theater in January, my friends and I arrived at the theater forty-minutes beforehand to secure our seats. But alas, the theater was practically empty on a Friday night with only 20 people.
For this movie, I’m surprised even that many people showed up.
Best F(r)iends is the return fans have waited for, but it’s an unfortunate let down. With poor acting, a sloppy script, braindead logic and choppy editing choices, it would’ve been better if Sestero and Wiseau milked the fame from The Room a little bit longer.
The story follows a homeless man, John, played by Greg Sestero, who befriends a mortician, Harvey, played by Tommy Wiseau. Harvey’s skill consists of giving beautiful new faces to the dead, but he also stashes their gold teeth. When he finds bags of gold teeth, John encourages Harvey to sell them in the black market.
No, you don’t needed to clean your glasses, this is the actual plot. It may sound ridiculous, but Wiseau and Sestero have the special ability to turn garbage into gold.
However, this is just garbage. There’s surprisingly a story here, but writer Greg Sestero fails to move it along.
Events happen just to happen, which drags down the pace. For example, John is talking to Harvey, when suddenly the mortician announces he’s planning his yearly trip to Las Vegas that night. John obviously accepts and the duo heads to Sin City.
Their trip to Las Vegas feels like an eternity. The film’s budget must’ve not been large enough to shoot inside a casino, so the pair unconvincingly reenact a crazy night, which shows them stumbling around the streets for five minutes while a dreary guitar rips in the background.
Scenes like this with lengthy montages will make you want to check into Harvey’s morgue. It’s like scrolling through Instagram and coming across that person who shares a thousand photos of their vacation in Hawaii. We get it, move on!
While their time in Vegas feels like watching two stars getting paid to go on vacation, there’s a moment of profound stupidity that will make you question the logic behind Sestero’s script.
After knowing John, a random temporarily mute homeless man who wore a bloody shirt when they first met, for two days, Harvey offers him the keys to the morgue in a partnership. At this moment, I should’ve left the theater and went about the rest of my night doing something better like watching paint dry. But oh, The Outlook, what I do for you and your readers.
Just when you thought the montages took forever, wait until you sit through the painfully awkward scenes of improvised dialogue. In The Room, Tommy Wiseau was bound to a script and read his dialogue line by line. It was terribly delivered, but good enough.
Instead, Director Justin MacGregor throws the script in the casket for Wiseau, creating a weird environment where actors have to adapt to the his erratic behavior. Not only is Wiseau’s performance cringe-worthy, but it looks as though Sestero hasn’t attended an acting class since his time before The Room.
The actors say their lines as though they read the script for the first time when they hopped on set. The acting is atrocious and something that was better executed in the movies I shot with friends in high school.
As we crawl towards the end of this tortuous endurance test, Justin MacGregor’s editing becomes progressively worse. In its last scene, the audio isn’t synchronized to the actor’s lips and the special effects look like something out of Windows Movie Maker. At this point, you question, “can the movie do something right?”
Once we reach the end of our treacherous journey, Best F(r)iends has the nerve to end on a cliff hanger. There’s another strange montage that goes on for five minutes, then your stomach squirms when you see “Volume II coming in May.”
When I left the theater from The Room screening in January, people were smiling and laughing as they talked about their favorite parts or lines. Many look to Room showings as a spiritual event where they can express themselves among others who have a bond with the movie too.
On the other hand, the few who left the theater after Best F(r)iends were scratching their heads and saying something like, “I think I enjoyed it?” It’s a movie which takes so much effort to like, but it fails you each time you try your best to chuckle at a silly joke.
Wiseau and Sestero should just stay in The Room.
IMAGE TAKEN from MIDNIGHT PULPL
