By the bitter end of its eight-season run, HBO’s “Entourage”
had twisted its own narrative to a degree that it was barely recognizable from
the beginning of the series. When it started, “Entourage” was the story of
three average guys and their decidedly not average best friend with the
movie-star good looks, trying to make it in the cutthroat world of Hollywood
with only their loyalty to each other and NYC roots to keep them above the
spoiled fray. We could relate to Vinny, Eric, Johnny and Turtle. By the end,
the boys of “Entourage” were men, and they were the exact kind of narcissists
that the show felt like it mocked at the beginning. Success was the most
important thing in their lives, and the show became little more than a story of
a dream fulfilled, despite the occasional laugh. It wasn’t about the guy who
went to Hollywood and stayed himself, bro. It was about the guy who went to
Hollywood and slept with models, had all the new toys, won awards, etc., bro.
Four years after “Entourage” went off the air (although it
feels much longer), creator Doug Ellin is back with the inevitable film version
of his show, continuing the same tonal problems of the last few seasons of the program only in a longer, bigger, more misogynist form. Much like the series, even in its lowest
points, there are still a few laughs from the supporting cast, and Ellin paces
the piece well (it doesn’t feel nearly as long as the neverending “Sex and the
City” movies), but “Entourage” mistakenly keeps its characters floating in
rarefied air, giving us no way to relate to them or care about them. Vinny and
his buddies have become easier to correlate with the Kardashians than the
dreamers they used to be. And that makes for a film that keeps its audience at
a distance, never surprising them at all narratively and barely moving the
needle for its characters. It is fan fiction in film form.
After ending a marriage that lasted only nine days with a
hot person party in Ibiza (“Entourage” takes place in that dream movie world in
which every extra in every scene from the people walking down the
street to all the patrons of a restaurant could be a fashion model),
Vinny Chase (Adrian Grenier) wants to get back in the movie game. He calls up
Ari (Jeremy Piven) and convinces him to re-join his team as the producer on his
next flick, a futuristic take on the Stevenson classic, “Hyde.” One catch:
Vinny wants to direct.
Ellin’s script ignores most of the production process, immediately
zipping us forward to days after filming has wrapped. Ari and his producing
partners, including Texan walking-stereotype financiers played by Billy Bob
Thornton and Haley Joel Osment, still haven’t seen a cut of the film, which
Vinny is clearly apprehensive about showing to anyone. Part of the problem is
that he needs more money on the already over-budget film to finish
post-production. Ari agrees to go to Texas to talk to the money men about
getting the cash, but Chase is going to have to get over his nerves and show
the movie to everybody soon.
Meanwhile, E (Kevin Connolly) is having a baby with Sloan
(Emmanuelle Chriqui) even though the two aren’t together any more. Which means
he gets to have sex with multiple people one day and go to Lamaze the next. E
and Sloan were always one of the weaker subplots of the HBO show and nothing
has changed here. In better news, Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon) gets to steal a
few scenes with a solid arc about his “baby bro”’s movie being the one that
finally gives him a break. Finally, Turtle (Jerry Ferrara), who seems to have
made a million dollars for every pound he’s lost, which is quite a few, almost
literally runs into Ronda Rousey, and tries to start a relationship with her.
The VERY little tension of “Entourage” comes when the son of
Chase’s main financier, played with smarm by Osment, reports back that he hates
the cut of “Hyde” that he’s seen, especially the four scenes that include
Johnny Drama. Will Vinny cut out his brother and betray his vision to get the
movie done? Have you seen the show?
At the end of HBO’s “Entourage,” the characters were wildly
successful, rich and happy. Guess what? They still are! Rather than take any
chances, Ellin barely wrote a plot for the “Entourage” movie, using his time
instead to call in celebrity cameos and think of the prettiest locations in
which to shoot them. Most of the dialogue is forced and unnatural, especially
in the Connolly/Chriqui and Ferrara/Rousey subplots, but that’s because it
doesn’t matter what people say in the world of “Entourage.” All that matters is
who they party with, who they sleep with, and how much money they make. And the
film suffers greatly from a plague of TV-to-film adaptations in that it gets
strikingly repetitive given that the people behind it are used to writing
30-minutes narratives and spin their wheels when they try to go feature-length.
Without Piven and Dillon to keep it entertaining, it would be absolutely
dreadful.
“Entourage” ended in such a way that I don’t think even
diehard fans of the HBO show were overly concerned about Vinny and the boys.
There were no loose ends to tie up. And, in that sense, “Entourage” feels like
another victory lap for characters who had already won the race of life.
Instead of challenging his characters or giving them something new to do, Ellin
just high fives them on the way to the winner’s circle.
Source:: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/entourage-2015
