CREDIT: Magnolia Pictures/YouTube Screenshot
Starring: Tim Heidecker, Gregg Turkington, Terri Parks, Don Pecchia, Curtis Webster
Director: Eric Notarnicola
Running Time: 89 Minutes
Rating: R for Language, Mostly and Some Drug Use Apparently
Release Date: October 9, 2019 (One Night Only)
Mister America is the latest, and perhaps most ambitious, entry in the Tim Heidecker/Gregg Turkington Fictional Universe. Now either that sentence is meaningless to you, or you’ve already made plans to see Mister America. For the uninitiated, the backstory is more ridiculous and labyrinthine than you could possibly imagine. Starting in 2011, Heidecker and Turkington started the podcast On Cinema, in which they review films as fictionalized, mostly incompetent versions of themselves. A couple of years later, the show became the webseries On Cinema at the Cinema on AdultSwim.com, and it’s since gone on to spawn spin-offs, like the action spoof Decker on Adult Swim proper, and then “The Trial,” an extended courtroom saga in which Tim was charged with murder following the overdose deaths at a music festival he organized. Mister America is a mockumentary that directly springs from “The Trial,” chronicling Tim’s revenge-fueled campaign to become district attorney of San Bernardino, California.
If you’re a fan of Heidecker (and his frequent partner Eric Wareheim), you’re probably automatically loyal to whatever weird project he’s committed 100%. But if you’ve instead been traumatized by just one moment of exposure to his brand of purposeful amateurism, you probably have no intention of ever giving him another chance. I’m certainly in the former camp, but I do worry how someone who usually works in 5-to-20-minute bursts will handle a feature length space with the same shtick. As amused as I am by Heidecker’s clueless right-wing blowhard altar ego, it can be patience-testing to endure him spouting a bunch of gussied-up nonsense over and over again. Luckily, Turkington is on hand to occasionally lighten up the proceedings with his trademark banal movie trivia “facts.”
Much of the action of Mister America takes place in the drab hotel setup that Tim has made his campaign headquarters (it was necessary to establish residency in San Bernardino). This soul-killing setting reminded me of The Brink, the recent actual documentary about Steve Bannon that was similarly trapped by temporary lodgings. That film had a decently keen insight into the former White House chief strategist, but it was a tough watch because its subject is so devoid of charisma. So with that contrast in mind, Mister America kind of works because it’s about an idiot who’s nonetheless charismatic in a through-the-looking-glass sort of way. If only all the racist dog-whistlers out there were this clueless, the world would be a much better and more amusing place.
Mister America is Recommended If You Like: Tim Heidecker Unbound
Grade: 3 out of 5 Crime Eliminators
