Between Two Ferns: The Movie stars Zach Galifianakis as himself, hosting a public access television show of the same name, and becomes a laughing stock when his videos are uploaded to website Funny or Die. When an accident in the studio nearly kills Matthew McConaughey and leads to him nearly getting fired, network owner Will Ferrell demands Galifianakis go on the road to make ten more episodes of the show, otherwise he’s fired. So Galifianakis assembles his show’s production crew and hits the road, and engages in a series of unorthodox interviews with high-profile celebrities to save the show.
The film is based on the Funny or Die web series of the same name, in which Galifianakis would interview briefly interview A-list celebrities and ask them a bunch of antagonistic or offensive questions that would make them appear borderline uncomfortable. As the premise suggests, the film is no short on these sequences, with nearly over twenty celebrities featured getting roasted by Galifianakis, which is easily the film’s biggest highlight. Though now, the film attempts to place a backstory as to why big names such as Brie Larson or Keanu Reeves would subject themselves to this type of verbal abuse.
And while throwing an actual story into the mix seems like a great idea, as it allows Galifianakis to keep up his act for almost 90 minutes straight, this ultimately ends up being the film’s weakest element. While Galifianakis more or less maintains his same fictionalized persona that he had on the web series, not nearly as much is done with his character in the behind-the-scenes segments as it is in the interview segments. His insults really aren’t as clever, and it sometimes doesn’t feel like he has chemistry with any of the in-movie crew members.
These three characters are likable enough, though never really get any stand-out dialogue or memorable scenes of their own. They simply feel like they’re just included so Galifianakis had a few people to consistently talk to that weren’t the celebrities, regardless of whether or not the banter was good. Lauren Lapkus plays Carol, the main crew member who Galifianakis interacts with the most, and she winds up being the most likable of the three, although that’s because she gives a charming enough performance that winds up being hard to resist.
Will Ferrell is the only other big name actor besides Galifanakis to appear as himself, being portrayed as a coked-up, obnoxious exaggeration of nearly all of his other characters from the mid-2000’s. He gets in a few solid lines of dialogue but honestly comes off more just as loud and obnoxious rather than really funny, never really saying anything that sticks. He serves as the film’ antagonist, and as a way to help keep the plot moving, but that’s nearly it.
Maintaining a plot is really this film’s biggest problem, as every time it tries to reason a way into getting characters from Point A or Point B, it feels like very little effort was put into coming up with a plausible reason as to why things would happen. Galifianakis’ characterization will sometimes shift for the screenplay’s sake, while there are times where one of the crew members would have definitely called something Galifianakis said or did further into question than they actually do, just for the sake of allowing him to go through with certain actions he goes through with here.
Despite its flaws, the film still works in the end, which is almost exclusively thanks to all the scenes of Galifianakis going toe-to-toe with all the big name celebrities. Like in the web series that inspired it, Galifianakis is flawless in these moments, with such a deadpan delivery as he asks some of the most offensive questions one could ask big names like Benedict Cumberbatch, Chance the Rapper, or Bruce Willis. And while the actors this time around are more in on the joke than the actors in the original web series were - as witnessed by the film’s hilarious outtakes - their raw, improvised reactions where they fire right back at Galifianakis give some of the film its biggest laughs.
And while the film is pretty split on its screen time of interviews versus story, the interviews are featured so heavily - since there’s so many of them - that they arguably take up just a tad bit more of the run time, allowing for the good to ultimately outweigh the bad. And even when the film is in story mode, certain sequences do feature celebrities in extended cameos, also playing exaggerated versions of themselves, and this winds up being one of the best parts when the film’s not in interview mode. Seeing the likes of John Legend and Peter Dinklage showing up for a scene in which they poke fun at themselves make way for some solid laughs that took the antagonistic feel of the interviews and perfectly translated them into the story mode, and should have been the feel that the rest of the story sequences emulated more.
Between Two Ferns: The Movie attempts to give a plot to the cult, off-kilter web series, and by doing so, ruins a bit of the fun. The movie was clearly just a contrived way of allowing Galifianakis to go on an extended run of interviews, shown by just how little some of the effort was put into creating solid characters or believable scene transitions for the story sequences. What makes this movie work in the end though is when it sticks with its roots, which is Galifianakis engaging in brutal antagonistic exchanges with some of Hollywood’s finest, which are just as hilarious as the episodes of the original web series were. The movie could have been a bit more consistent, but the excellent interview sequences greatly make up for the film’s noticeable flaws.
Recommendation: Watch It
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