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Movie review: ‘Splinterheads’ laughs fall flat
Writer/director Brant Sersen had a festival hit on his hands in 2004 with the ridiculous “Blackballed,” a movie that featured the comedic talents of Rob Corddry, Rob Riggle, Jack McBrayer and others. Unfortunately, Sersen’s cinematic offering this year did not offer the laughs of his previous effort.
In “Splinterheads,” Justin Frost (newcomer Thomas Middleditch) is in a mild state of arrested development. Unable to get his life on track, the twentysomething is stuck in a rut in his sleepy New York town, fiddling with delusions of karate-expert grandeur while toiling aimlessly as a yard-boy with his friend Wayne Chung — a name that is a decent indicator of the humor in the film: simple and expected.
Still living at home with his widowed mother, Justin is a bit of a man-child, full of whimsy and insecurity. His safe little world is shattered by the appearance of Galaxy (Rachel Taylor), a beautiful con artist and carnival worker who eventually introduces him to a world of mild adventure (in the form of geocaching) and risk-taking.
Middleditch, a ringer for Seth Meyers with a tinge of Jonathan Richman, is at his best when he is playing the more high-status comedic character — lampooning Chung and his mother’s ex-boyfriend, a police sergeant played by the ubiquitous Christopher McDonald.
Maybe Middleditch is too old, maybe he is too handsome, but he is just not believable, or very likeable, as the nervous momma’s boy. Additionally, the entire conceit of a boy meeting a carnival splinterhead who teaches him how to get on with his life just seems a little too absurd to swallow. It feels like a teen movie stuck between goofy adolescence and twentysomething self-discovery, not quite here and not quite there.
The movie does have a certain charm. Middleditch gives a nice if at times awkward performance, and Taylor is serviceable, although far too beautiful to be a believable “splinterhead” — but the movie struggles too often, forcing the wrong comedic note and losing the audience’s interest with its fairly ridiculous storyline. If a plot line is going to be as cute and absurd as that of “Splinterheads,” it either needs more of an adolescent feel or needs to deliver more laughs.
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