Folk Hero & Funny Guy

Other than career politicians and ballerinas, could there be any more unlikely an odd couple? In writer/director Jeff Grace’s buddy road movie about two longtime friends, what begins as a tour circuit Jules and Jim becomes a reenactment of Gunga Din once the ill-matched acts take the stage. Hoping to provide the elixir of possibility to countermand the rut his pal Paul (Alex Karpovsky) finds himself in, emerging folk-rocker Jason Black (Wyatt Russell) invites him on an impromptu east coast tour as his comedic opening act. Both a treatise on friendship and an assessment on the gulf between standup comics and musicians, at their first stop they meet and invite Bryn Miller (Meredith Hagner) to accompany them, which proves to be a wise decision as well as their ultimate undoing. When not blaming the room, Paul sums up their differences as: “For a musician, a small intimate venue offers a way to connect with crowds, but for the comedian, it’s the reinforcement of a dead end – the crawl back to a 9-to-5 gig.” Shot in and around Atlanta (which doesn’t explain why there’s a Southern Culture On the Skids poster on club walls), David Cross appears briefly as a radio host.

[NR]