I, Challenger
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Based on 1 review
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I, Challenger
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A Lot or a Little?
The parents' guide to what's in this movie.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that I, Challenger is a 2022 indie stoner dramedy in which an unlucky middle-aged weed dealer tries to find luck by taking on a 24-hour online self-burial challenge. There are very few scenes in which the lead character or any of the other characters isn't smoking or trying to smoke weed. The lead character's customer base is primarily teenagers from a nearby private school. After selling strong weed to two teen boys, one of the teens sits in the driver's seat of his car and starts acting paranoid. After two teenage girls flirt with the lead character in the hopes of getting high for free (he emphatically tells them no), the lead character puts on a video of women dancing and shaking their rear ends; he's on the verge of masturbating when there's a knock on the door. The lead character is left tied up in his bed after a Tinder date with a woman who talks about "master and servant" relationships and engages in acts of sexual violence like biting. A home invader knocks out one of the main characters and leaves him tied up and then cuts off the oxygen supply of the lead character while he's buried in his backyard. Constant profanity, including "f--k," s--t," "c--ksucker," "p---y," "a--hole," "d--k," "bitches," "damn," "ass," and "motherf--ker."
Community Reviews
I, Challenger, a movie with heart.
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What's the Story?
In I, CHALLENGER, Sid (James Duval) is a weed dealer who is facing middle age and an unexpected eviction notice due to unpaid taxes levied by the IRS. His only friends are a fellow gamer named Logan (Coy Stewart) who he hasn't met in person, and teens from a nearby private school who buy weed from him. At Logan's suggestion, Sid (who goes by "Challenger" in the gaming world) joins Tinder to at least get something going with his love life, but ends up tied to his bed and left with no way of getting free by his first date (Margaret Cho). He's close enough to his gaming console to beg Logan to come by and rescue him, and when Logan finally comes over despite not really wanting to meet "Challenger" in the real world and frees Sid, Sid bemoans his bad luck, and Logan tells him how it's important to make one's own luck in life. Desperate for good luck and a solution to his money woes, Sid gets sucked into a YouTube hole of videos from Russia in which people claim that after burying themselves six feet underground with nothing but an oxygen tube and whatever they can fit in their casket to stay alive, they experience phenomenally good luck. Intrigued and desperate for any kind of change in his fortune, Sid convinces Logan to help him carry out this scheme and provide a live stream of Sid as the first American to attempt a self-burial for good luck. As Sid and Logan dig the whole in Sid's backyard and begin the livestream, it doesn't take long for it to go viral, but circumstances take a dark turn, and Sid must learn that good fortune is more than something that just happens.
Is It Any Good?
This is a better-than-average indie stoner dramedy that eventually gets to the point. I, Challenger starts off like it's going to be a full bingo card of weed cliches -- a slacker lead character is too stoned to pay his taxes, sits around playing video games in his slovenly living space etc. and so forth. The meandering pace of Sid selling weed, going to the dispensary to buy more weed, riding his bike around the streets of northeast Los Angeles, buying lottery tickets at the corner store is, somehow, enjoyable enough, as Sid eventually comes across as a likable character stuck in a rut and going through some tough times.
Eventually, the point of this all emerges, and the absurdity of what Sid undertakes in the hopes of changing his fortunes serves to show the ridiculous lengths people will go to both ignore the good fortune that's right in front of them and not put in the effort to make the changes necessary to create their own good luck. How much of this breaks through the constant weed cloud in nearly every scene is uncertain, but the indie qualities of the movie -- assured acting, making the most of a limited budget -- break through the haze. That said: Was all the meandering worth it? Mostly yes, but like all the other movies where marijuana is central to the story, the enjoyment of the movie mostly depends on how much one enjoys tales about drugs.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about "stoner" movies like I, Challenger. While it has obvious similarities to other movies centered on characters who smoke a lot of marijuana, how is it different?
Is Sid a likable character, despite his faults? Why or why not?
Does the movie glamorize teens smoking marijuana, or is it trying to realistically show how teens get high, or both?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming: January 11, 2022
- Cast: James Duval, Coy Stewart, Margaret Cho
- Director: Paul Boyd
- Studio: Strike Back Studios
- Genre: Comedy
- Run time: 98 minutes
- MPAA rating: NR
- Last updated: August 30, 2022
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