Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show (Ari Sandel, 2008)

The brainchild of Vince Vaughn (we actually get to hear Vaughn propose the idea over the opening credits), the Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights – Hollywood to the Heartland is a mash up, more documentary than stand-up, more behind the stage than on it, more improvised than not and, just slightly, more good than bad. Pitched as a sketch show hosted by Vaughn himself, the film opens to an amusing skit between Vince and, naturally, Jon Favreau about Swingers. But from that point on the skits start misfiring pretty badly, which filmmaker Ari Sandel seems to realize as he pushes the four comedians (Sebastian Maniscalco, Bret Ernst, John Caparulo and Ahmed Ahmed) to the forefront of the story. The whole thing is curiously devoid of legitimate “westerner’s” and the jokes are sometimes uneven, but regardless, it’s when the film takes the time to reflect on the comedian’s individual situations (Maniscalco waiting tables, Ernst on how his set had just bombed) that the best moments shine through. Unfortunately those moments are rare and I started to get the peculiar feeling that a lot of the juicier moments were cut out to make this more of a “puff piece” than it should have been. After all, the film is mostly an excuse to hangout for Vaughn and a group of his friends. But it’s strange that after 30 days, Vaughn, who’s surprisingly getting the least number of laughs and the least attention, is ready to call it quits… while the comedians want the show to go on.