Entourage (Review)

DIRECTOR: Doug Ellinentourage_ver2

CAST: Kevin Connolly, Adrian Grenier, Kevin Dillon, Jerry Ferrera, Jeremy Piven, Perrey Reeves, Rex Lee, Debi Mazer, Constance Zimmer, Billy Bob Thornton, Haley Joel Osment, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Scott Mescudi, Rhys Coiro, Nora Dunn, Alan Dale, Martin Landau

RUNNING TIME: 104 mins

CERTIFICATE: 15

BASICALLY…: Hollywood actor Vincent Chase (Grenier) and his friends E (Connolly), Drama (Dillon), Turtle (Ferrera) and agent-turned-studio-head Ari Gold (Piven) find themselves in hot water when Chase’s directorial debut goes wildly over-budget…

NOW FOR THE REVIEW…

Before we talk about the film version of HBO’s Entourage, please note that this is all coming from a reviewer who has NOT seen the show. However, from what we’ve seen and heard of it, we feel that Honest Trailers sums it up perfectly.

As it turns out, Entourage the Movie is pretty much the above video… except without the funny commentary. All that’s left is a vacuous series of clips showcasing the wealth, excess and glamour that a Hollywood lifestyle can supposedly bring according to writer-director Doug Ellin, who is also the show’s creator – which would be fine if we were all on the same level. But we’re not. We are but mere middle-to-lower class audience members that are paying to see rich white guys do stupid rich white guy things and pretending that what they do actually matters. They most certainly do not, but that’s beside the point – we not only don’t care about these grade-A wankers, but we want to see them suffer at some point for their endless awfulness. It’s all part of the class system, something we won’t get into much here because we are not politically entitled enough to do so, that we oppose those who have everything they want without any consequences, while the rest of us can only watch with great disdain and anger that they have been given this power when there are so many others that are lower down the ladder that deserve it more. It is endless torture to watch these horrible people abuse their powers to no end, and – even more insultingly – without consequence. Imagine watching The Wolf of Wall Street and never seeing Jordan Belfort getting what he deserves for ripping off so many people for his own financial gain – that’s this movie.

We’re not even kidding when we say that every single person in this movie is one of three things: a douchebag, a moron, or both. That’s when they’re not being so uncharismatic it’s actually painful; how anyone can see potential in a guy like movie star Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), who has all the charm of haemorrhoids in both his personal and professional life, is frankly mind-boggling, and especially when his directorial debut – a Jekyll and Hyde modernisation involving DJs or something – is claimed to be the next great film of our age when it frankly looks like absolute rubbish. His mates, the titular entourage, are no better; “E” (Kevin Connolly), Turtle (Jerry Ferrera) and Drama (Kevin Dillon) have no definable personality other than being masculine bone-heads that shag first and ask questions later, while breakout character – if you can call him that – Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) basically spends the movie shouting offensive obscenities that would make The Thick of It’s Malcolm Tucker feel embarrassed to use. They, and the rest of the film, also take up an alarmingly misogynist perspective that renders all female characters as either un-humorous ball-busters or flaunty sex-pots; and we don’t buy the explanation that it’s all meant to be a “male fantasy” for a second, because it implies something that is frankly too disturbing to bring up in this day and age. It just gives us more of a reason to hate these people, and what they represent.

The levels of indulgence are overwhelmingly obnoxious; there are scenes dedicated in their entirety to these people partying with celebrities (we’ll get to those in a second) at expensive pads, driving around in bulky luxury cars that are presented as gifts, and juggling gorgeous women like Emily Ratajkowski and Ronda Rousey as if it’s a life or death situation. If Doug Ellin’s intent was to present a vision of Hollywood that offers everything a good-looking guy deserves to have (a product of the warped minds behind this theory), then Ellin has sold his soul to the Devil in order to make it happen, because nothing that is shown here resembles anything in the real world, which can work if they show what they have to go through which it never does. It just gives and gives and gives without a price, which in many ways makes the movie something of a spoilt brat. It’s obnoxious, it takes everything for granted, and someone desperately needs to give this movie a stern talking to so it can learn the hardships of real life.

As for those celebrity cameos, many of which are by the dozen, they end up drawing unwelcome comparisons to Keith Lemon: The Film (mainly because we never want to think of it ever again). This is because the majority of them don’t even look like they want to be there half the time, like Pharrell Williams who pops up for no discernible reason and frankly looks confused as to why he’s even there when he could be collaborating again with Daft Punk or something. He’s not the only one: the likes of Liam Neeson, Jessica Alba, David Spade et al look like they’ve been forced onto camera and all they can think about is the sizeable cheque being dangled by the producers off-screen. Even Mark Wahlberg, one of the producers and the apparent inspiration behind the TV show, feels embarrassed to be there, as if he’s finally moved on from all this nonsense and just wants to be making something more worthwhile.

So, as you can probably tell, we didn’t like this movie that much. We never watched the show, and this film certainly hasn’t persuaded us to do so; if anything, we’re turned off even more by it than we were before. As far as bad films go, we still think that Unfinished Business is still by far the worst this year (at least, so far) because it was honestly the bigger waste of time, but Entourage is very, very close to topping it, just based on its obnoxious nature alone.

Basically, what Mark Kermode said.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Entourage is a spoilt brat of a film, basking in the indulgence of the romanticised Hollywood lifestyle with little to no consequences whatsoever and presenting such hateful and charisma-less characters as, somehow, the best people ever. Hateful, misogynist, obnoxious and simply bathing in its vile douchebag nature, it’s hard not to want to punch it square in the face. Simply appalling.

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