A Mindless Comedy with Few Laughs

Brain cells will be lost as BFFs leaps from one incredibly stupid prank after another in a mindless comedy that does admittedly get a few big laughs. Filmmakers Constantine Paraskevopoulos and Adam Rifkin pull double duty as former frat bros who get into an escalating prank war with serious consequences. They’re joined in the buffoonery by a famed ensemble who must have been drinking while filming. The witless narrative might have been palatable without the frenetic editing and grating soundtrack, but it’s hard to enjoy a film when you feel like it’s attacking your ears and eyeballs. Thankfully, the runtime is mercifully brief.

The story takes place in Phoenix, Arizona, where dorky insurance executive Jerry Klugman (Paraskevopoulos, in quite possibly the worst wig in cinema history) gets yelled at by his a-hole boss, Mr. Coogan (Terrence Howard), about firing an employee. Jerry initially doesn’t have the nerve, but forces himself to do it after his job is threatened. Jerry then returns home to Dora (Jennifer Morrison), his pregnant wife, and a large package. He opens it and gets a lewd surprise that’s literally lubed. Jerry’s disgusted, but Dora humorously says it may actually help. Who would send something so gross?

Worst Friends Ever

Jerry gets another gag gift and finally figures out the culprit: Henry Hartman (Rifkin), his best friend from college, wants to pay him a visit with a new girlfriend. Jerry hosts them for dinner, where Henry continues with his pranks. It’s all in good fun, a tradition between besties, and now Jerry is scheming to return the favor. The party takes a happy turn when Henry announces he’s proposed to the gorgeous Anita (Aníta Briem); it’s congrats all around, until Anita gets Jerry by herself.

The pranks continue at Jerry’s work until he receives something truly disturbing. Henry’s finally pushed it too far, and Jerry goes to his job at the Department of Homeland Security to stop this nonsense. Henry swears it wasn’t him, but has something else to confide in Jerry: He thinks Anita is cheating on him, and wants to use his job to find her secret love interest.

Terrence Howard as Mr. Coogan

Seismic Releasing

Rifkin (The Chase, Detroit Rock City) wrote the script for BFFs, while Paraskevopoulos directs. They purposely portray Henry and Jerry as extremely unlikable leads: Henry’s an obnoxious jerk with no redeeming qualities, and Jerry, though quiet and unassuming, is the kind of guy who has zero qualms about flirting with his best friend’s fiancé when his wife is pregnant. They’re scumbags that the audience can’t stand, which is the goal. You don’t care what these clowns do to each other because they both deserve it. That works in theory, but fails in the execution.

Paraskevopoulos, a well-known writer, music video director and industry figure, goes editing overboard in his feature debut. Every scene is a barrage of quick cuts; this is done as part of the film’s upbeat tempo, but it’s visually jarring and honestly becomes annoying. The best scenes are the ones where Paraskevopoulos just sticks with the master shot and doesn’t deviate, because you get to actually absorb the inane plot instead of a tiresome editing frenzy. Paraskevopoulos also uses clunky green-screen backgrounds to replace sets, for both budgetary and timing reasons. They’re obviously fake, which is part of the juvenile humor. But the joke doesn’t land, and makes the film seem even more amateur.

Nick Stahl as Security “Guy”

Seismic Releasing

Now let’s address the thumping score. RZA is an executive producer on BFFs. There’s a rap theme song that’s played constantly throughout the film. One or twice is doable; it has a decent party beat, and isn’t terrible. But to hear it on repeat scene after scene is near tortuous. This is in addition to the other music and crazy sound effects, which turn the film into essentially a long-form music video with bits of acting interspersed. That might have worked, if the finished product wasn’t so irritating.

BFFs has a far more intricate plot than expected, as the prank thread evolves into something more devious that’s part of the film’s purported mystery. Rifkin goes into layers of convolution that water down the humor that hits. He would have been better served to just stick with the sophomoric shenanigans and accept those laughs; adding in a deeper plot twist with even more zany and witless characters is like pulling taffy into a noodle. BFFs has a short 80-minute runtime, but seems much longer because there’s so much to resolve in the end. It’s hard to say “less is more” in a sub-90-minute film, but astonishingly, that’s the case here.

BFFs pushes the audience into a corner, when it could have gotten away with being far less abrasive. Yes, there are laugh-out-loud bits, as some of the raunchy and gross pranks elicit the expected response. It’s just everything else that’s lacking.

BFFs is a production of Ammni Studios, RZA Productions and Digital Ignition Entertainment. It was released theatrically on September 26th from Seismic Releasing.