Watching The FP was the most annoying experience I've ever had to endure in my life. Even rolling into the emergency room with a punctured spleen felt like Heaven in comparison. I tell you, the whole thing is so obvious and juvenile that it will make you cringe for the better part of 83 minutes. But what's even more annoying is the widespread enjoyment that fellow spectators seemed to derive from this abrasive drivel. Such overwhelming validation of the onscreen tomfoolery actually made me feel like a total outsider, a snob basking in his own arrogance. It's exactly the same feeling I derived from watching Adam Sandler's painfully unfunny vehicle, You Don't Mess with the Zohan. You find yourself stuck in an overcrowded theater, rolling your eyes and raising your eyebrows at the increasingly lame jokes shot toward you like machine gun fire while everyone else seems to be enjoying the show. This time was even worse, thanks to some drunken crew members who would laugh as loudly as possible following every other joke, no matter how unfunny or insignificant. I remember one particular shot in which the female protagonist of the film sports an I (heart) NY t-shirt where the NY is crossed out and FP is written in its place. That simple shot immediately had the whole room trembling with laughter, while I could only watch the ceiling and pray for a quick resolution to this offensive mess. Had I watched The FC at home with a large supply of beer and weed, maybe I could've gotten a mild kick out of its childish antics, but seeing how the most primitive of jokes will garner the most primitive of laughter, it was hard for me to watch it along with an army of pre-convinced fans. I guess you could say that I am a cynical asshole and you would be correct in saying so. But then, cynicism remains one of the only forms of lucidity out there.
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| The FC: Rated Arg for pirates. Fuck you! |
If you didn't grin while reading the previous synopsis, then The FC is not for you. The film actually plays out like such a student farce that it made me regress to an earlier stage of my artistic development, when I would turn out similar fare with a bunch of friends in order to entertain other friends. The level of our jokes was so low (and so similar to those contained here) as to actually fill me with shame, making me wonder exactly how one can turn out a popular comedy that doesn't aim at the lowest common denominator. I mean, here you have a wigger named BLT, and the simple mention of his name is supposed to elicit cries of laughter from the audience. Evidently, the joke is a complex and clever one: seeing how a wigger would likely use an acronym to identify himself, the writers went for BLT, which also stands for Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato, as in the BLT sandwich. Get it? It's as if this guy was named Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato!!! Funny, huh? Hell, you might think it is, and I respect that. I respect how much of a fucking breeze life must be if you manage to be amused by such a juvenile wordplay. Funny thing is, I would've loved to love the film, as I would've loved to love You Don't Mess with the Zohan. But the problem is that I personally see popular humor as something totally defunct, something that should've transcended pratfalls and pastiche by now, more than one hundred years after the birth of film comedy. Being a dark and brooding individual amused only by the more somber ironies of life, it's impossible for me to achieve the level of careless abandon necessary to enjoy the ticklish quality of the aforementioned wordplay. Nor can I laugh at the sight of oversized Dance Dance Revolution boots...
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| Some clever bargain-basement art direction helps prevent the film from bombing. |
Largely influenced by the redemption through sports scenario permeating American pop culture, The FC is little more than an exercise in connecting the dots, with some awkward jokes, ranging from flat to offensive, inserted all over the place to better help soften the audience into a shapeless, undiscriminating mass ready to absorb the following series of absurd tribulations with unwavering docility. And while I loathed the film with all my heart, I must give it praise for some really clever art direction Working with scraps taken from a garbage heap, the artisans who put the costumes and decors together have managed to imbue the film with a rather distinctive feel that elevates the ensemble just above the BOMB rating that it would otherwise deserve.
0.5/5 Some truly clever art direction elevate this abrasive bargain-basement Rocky pastiche just above the level of pure futility.
