I've Been Watching Awful Comedies For Over 31 Years. Only One Made Me Walk Out Of The Theater

Watching insufferable movies is one of my favorite pastimes, a result of consuming Hulk Hogan's bizarre Hollywood career as an impressionable child. If a film has the reputation of being unwatchable, I will purposely seek it out because I'm apparently a glutton for punishment. However, the downside of partaking in movie masochism is that, sometimes, it hurts. Watching "Keith Lemon: The Movie," "Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead," "Mrs. Brown's Boys D'Movie," and "Entourage" in theaters are among the lowest points of my life — eclipsed only by the deaths of family members and pets. But I made it to the end of all of them, which is more than what could be said about "War on Everyone."

If you aren't familiar with this flick (and more power to you), "War on Everyone" is a buddy cop caper starring Michael Pena and Alexander Skarsgård — two brilliant actors — as a pair of corrupt detectives in New Mexico. Their mission? To take down a criminal who is almost as bad as they are. It's an adequate premise for a dirty cop movie, right?

"War on Everyone" was helmed by John Michael McDonagh, the director of dark comedy delights like "The Guard" and the mysteriously philosophical "Calvary." For context, "The Guard" is one of my comfort films, and I put "Calvary" in the camp of movies that deserved to win an Academy Award, but didn't. In short, I was the audience for "War on Everyone" back in 2016. So, why did I decide to bail halfway through?

We're all familiar with the sentiment of not being angry, only disappointed. Watching "Keith Lemon: The Movie" in theaters made me so angry that I felt tempted to do 100 goblet squats afterward because I wasted £12.40 on a ticket. With "War on Everyone," though, I was disappointed as I expected one of the best comedies of all time, only to be severely let down instantly. 

"War on Everyone" opens with Michael Pena's character wondering if mimes make a noise when they get run over. His partner proceeds to run over a mime they're chasing with their car, and that answers the question. The scene establishes that our anti-heroes are renegades, but it's stupid — and not in a good way.

John Michael McDonagh's previous efforts contain legendary opening scenes. In "The Guard," Brendan Gleeson's Irish police officer takes a dead road accident victim's drugs and stares into a gloomy grey ocean, enjoying a rare moment of happiness. It instantly establishes the character's dysfunctional personality while introducing the film's central crime mystery for him to solve. "Calvary," meanwhile, begins with an unseen man telling a priest (once again played by Gleeson) that he's going to kill him. Now that's a hook.

Meanwhile, the opening of "War on Everyone" is a lazy attempt at shock value that's neither funny, intriguing, nor even shocking. The movie only stumbles through unfunny scenes from that moment on, so I bailed after 40 minutes, as I didn't want to be let down further by a filmmaker I admire. That said, I rewatched the movie in its entirety years later, but did it improve with lower expectations and my willingness to give it a second chance?

"Calvary" and "The Guard" contain moments of pathos and humanity to counterbalance the dark humor. Brendan Gleeson's character in the latter makes racist jokes about his colleagues and breaks the law, but it's because he's bored. His problematic attributes stem from existential woes, which are terrifically mined for humor. By contrast, the detectives in "War on Everyone" are just nasty, but the humor is juvenile, which makes it feel like a comedy written by an angsty 13-year-old edgelord. I don't know if John Michael McDonagh was trying to satirize the cop genre here, but the end product is so tonally drab that it barely even passes as a comedy.

Unlike "The Guard" and "Calvary," "War on Everyone" really doesn't earn or justify its offensive humor. The detectives make jokes about Muslims, overweight children, and Peruvians dying in earthquakes, so no group is immune to ridicule, but what's the point of it all? To illustrate that these dudes are awful? We know that. It's boring because that's all there is to it.

If you want to watch a good unfunny movie about problematic detectives being a-holes, check out "Dragged Across Concrete." If you want to watch a comedy that satirizes cop flicks, you can't go wrong with "Hot Fuzz," one of the best parody movies in cinema history. The thing is, though, McDonagh has the talent to work wonders with a premise like this, so I don't know how he managed to miss the mark with "War on Everyone." So, is this better upon rewatch? The answer is no.