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Mar 02, 2012 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick

When Erma Bombeck said that there was a thin line between laughter and pain, she probably never even imagined the lengths to which Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim would take their comedy. And now that we’ve quoted a writer who couldn’t be at a further end of the comedy spectrum from those two, we can focus on the closest thing in Tim & Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie that resembles a plot.

Tim and Eric (who play themselves, naturally) are given one billion dollars by a shady executive to make a blockbuster film, which they quickly blow on diamonds, personal gurus, and a Johnny Depp impersonator. Charged with returning the investment any way they can or be killed by Robert Loggia, the duo try their hand at turning around the destitute wasteland that is the S’Wallow Valley Mall, perhaps the bleakest shopping center to appear on celluloid since Dawn of the Dead. Several shops in the run-down mall are inexplicably still open for business, despite being inhabited by a small population of vagrants, a dangerous wolf, a used toilet paper salesman, and reportedly an angry ghost. Over the course of the film, Eric falls in love, Tim adopts a child, they watch Top Gun (several times), and get shit on by chidren. It’s safe to say that the movie’s all over the place, and that if you’re looking for a tightly-plotted feature you should look elsewhere.

If you’re familiar with their Adult Swim television series, Tim & Eric’s Awesome Show, Great Job!, you’ll know what sort of uncomfortable humor (i.e. lots of long, awkward stares and gratuitous shots of their schlubby, disrobed bodies) and visual aesthetic (choppy, jarring edits and infomercial graphics) to expect from their first feature film. Without the restraints of late night cable TV, they take it all even further, with copious puerile, gross-out visual gags and cameo appearances, the bonkers cast including Zach Galifianakis, Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Jeff Goldblum, Will Forte, and Ray Wise. (The heroes’ theme song is sung by Aimee Mann.)

It does suffer from the lack of focus that plagues many TV-to-big screen adaptations—it’s closer to, say, Big Top Pee-wee, than to Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, though the latter technically came before Playhouse—but when the TV show can barely maintain a plot, it’s hard to expect that from the spinoff film. It’s a movie full of real laughs, yet it’s still hard to recommend in good conscience due to the humor’s purposefully offputting nature. If you enjoy the surreal and discomforting comedy of their TV show, then you’re likely already sold on Billion Dollar Movie. If you’re one of the many who just don’t think they’re very funny, there’s little here that will change that opinion. (www.timanderic.com)

Author rating: 5/10