MasterChugs Theater: ‘Mystery Team’

Movies from sketch comedy groups can be dicey propositions. The formats aren’t really conducive to each other. Sketch comedy can be hilarious one moment, then the next moment it’s crickets chirping. If the group is good, they can move on quickly and forget about things. But movies are a whole other monster to tame. what could sustain three to five minutes can be awkward in this new format. Some groups can pull it off, and you get great films like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Brain Candy and Super Troopers. Mess it up, and you’re stuck with Miss March.

And there’s not a lot on this earth that’s worse, cinematically speaking, than Miss March.

Now we have Derrick Comedy, an internet sensation full of gentlemen whose names all begin with a “D,” though curiously, none named Derrick. Whether you find this clever or stupid will help determine whether or not you will enjoy Mystery Team. Going by this scale, however, it pleases me to no end that Mystery Team is a rather clever and hysterically funny movie with its heart in the right place that potentially puts the Derrick boys at least on track with the Broken Lizard fellas.

Mystery Team is a film about a group of former Encyclopedia Brown-type child-detectives who have yet to grow up and are still solving stupid crimes during their senior year of High School. When an 8-year-old hires the team to solve a case of her parents double murder, the Mystery team must face the first adult case in the team’s history. The movie is incredibly well written and Derrick Comedy has perfectly captured the feeling of reading an Encyclopedia Brown type mystery on acid. The characters are all well developed, the performances on level of “the not ready for primetime players”, a compelling story, and laugh out loud moments at every turn. But I was most impressed in the film’s cinematography, which tries much harder than any other sketch comedy film that I’ve ever seen before. It is the difference between feeling like Reno 911 and feeling like an actual movie (albeit, shot on digital video).

A lot of the comedy comes forth from the characters reacting to strange new situations. Donald Glover, from NBC’s Community, takes the lead role of Jason with a perverse glee and ignorance that truly is bliss. He wants to continue solving mysteries for the rest of his life, with his chums by his side no matter how practical that might be. His companions D.C. Pierson and Dominic Dierkes are just a bit more practical, but alongside the same skill level and are no less hilarious. There are a lot of familiar faces that support the able leads, many of whom can be found on NBC’s Thursday night comedy line up including the lovely Aubrey Plaza in the “femme fatale” role of this particular mystery.

The screenplay, also handled by Pierson, Dierkes and Glover is at times razor sharp: no sloppy improv here. Some of the film’s best lines are throwaways. At an office party that’s crashed, one middle manager wearily tells another who is behaving badly that “sometimes I wish you didn’t beat cancer, I really do.” If you don’t pause the movie to then break out into laughter after hearing that line, I don’t know what’s wrong with you.

The problem with making a feature is that sooner or later you have to tend to plot, and even at 98 minutes, the movie feels padded at times. First-time director and troupe member Dan Eckman films each scene as pragmatically as possible, and that doesn’t help make things constantly flow. On the plus side, Saturday Night Live cast member Bobby Moynihan has a few good scenes as the local snitch, an even bigger loser than the heroes, and the comic chemistry between Glover, Pierson, and Dierkes is tight.

The film is a true labor of love of the performers and the hard work and good times show on the screen. Given how hard I laughed during the entire running time, I’d say they succeeded. Like all good comedies, Mystery Team has a heart. Kooky mayhem aside, this is a tale of three friends struggling to face the reality of growing up. Through this, the film finds a nice balance of good story, good action and great humor.