Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show

Back to the main review

What’s the Story?

In the late summer of 2005, Vince Vaughn and a company of four young stand-up comics plucked from a well-known Los Angeles comedy club embarked on a 30-day, 30-city stand-up marathon. With the added attraction of some appealing guest stars -- including Justin Long, Peter Billingsley, and Jon Favreau -- the show played to delighted, mostly college-aged audiences in sold-out auditoriums. This documentary follows the company, on stage and off, as they make their way across America.

Is It Any Good?

Credit Vaughn with trying to pay it forward. Grateful for his own success, he hoped the country would fall in love with comedians Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst, and Sebastian Maniscalco. For the most part, he achieves his goals: Their show is funny, irreverent, hip, macho, revealing, and heartfelt. The movie is all that, as well. It's also too long, and occasionally upended by raging testosterone and lapses into childish behavior.

Ahmed, Caparulo, Ernst, and Maniscalco -- and, of course, Vaughn -- are talented, funny men. They're also revealed to be very human. Scenes between shows (shot in the luxury bus that was their home for the trip) are mostly playful but also reveal the insecurity and fear that are part of show business. In four highly personal scenes with the comics' families, the audience gets a first-hand look at their origins, their characters, their hopes, and their vulnerability. Those scenes make this film more than just a comedy revue.