Nick Corirossi’s The Napa Boys is an admirable tribute to a classic vintage of lowbrow comedies, but too many jokes fall flat.
The title card for The Napa Boys actually presents the film as The Napa Boys 4: The Quest for the Sommelier’s Amulet. The film is a pseudo-sequel, dropping viewers several films into a Napa Boys franchise that doesn’t actually exist. It’s a framing device that past comedies have used both successfully (Surf II: The End of the Trilogy) and otherwise (Leonard Part 6). At best, the constant referencing of nonexistent backstory sets up some great gags. At worst, it forces film critics to describe a story that purposefully doesn’t make sense. Sadly, no one had the guts to use this full title in the film’s official release.
In their heyday, the Napa Boys were a group of best friends who drank wine and went on wild archeological adventures. Think Raiders of the Lost Ark meets Sideways. But Miles Jr. (co-writer Armen Weitzman) has been driven to sobriety by the death of his wife and child. Jack Jr. (director/co-writer Nick Corirossi) refuses to give up on his friend, using the mythical Sommelier’s Amulet and a threat against the vineyard of Mitch Mitchellson (Mike Mitchell) to force Miles Jr. back into action.
Friend-of-a-friend Stifler’s Brother (Jamar Malachi Neighbors) is along for the ride. So is investigative reporter Puck (Sarah Ramos), who stowed along in hopes of proving the truth behind the comic books dramatizing past Napa Boy adventures. Together they’ll have to take down the villainous Squirm (Paul Rust) through a series of loosely connected plot points and plenty of cameos by comedic greats like Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Riki Lindhome, Steve Agee, DJ Qualls, Ivy Wolk, and Ray Wise.
A sketch of a film.
Photo Credit: Magnolia Pictures
Even if you haven’t heard of director/co-writer/star Corirossi, you’ve almost certainly seen some of his work. The comedian has worked extensively with Funny or Die, creating now-classic videos like Don Cheadle Is Captain Planet and KFC Loves Gays. Which is perhaps why The Napa Boys feels more like series of comedy sketches than a traditional feature film. This is not necessarily a bad thing; Monty Python took the same approach to both Holy Grail and Life of Brian and delivered two of the greatest comedy films of all time.
But to describe these sketches as loosely connected would be generous. There is next to no continuity from one scene to the next. Plot points shift abruptly and characterization changes drastically for no real reason. This is not exactly a killing blow for a comedy, especially one so unapologetically stupid in tone. But The Napa Boys is also expecting audiences to piece together several films worth of implied canon. The combined expectations of piecing together what does make sense while ignoring the very many things that don’t is too much for the film to bear. Even what would otherwise be surefire jokes start to struggle under the weight of the increasingly convoluted script, and by the climax the film is struggling to string punchlines together in any meaningful way.
It’s especially disappointing because a tighter script would almost certainly have made the film funnier. Character plays a huge role in comedy, and something like Jack Jr. discovering he’s accidentally committed incest could have easily been multiple great jokes over multiple scenes if Jack Jr. were actually impacted. But while something like Futurama can turn that same gag into something that delivers results for multiple seasons, The Napa Boys forgets about it immediately. The film is full of moments like these. Great jokes fall flat or fail to meet their full potential because the script is focused on individual moments with little regard to their part in the actual whole.
The bottom line.
Two things you can’t fault The Napa Boys for are its ensemble and its heart. Corirossi has clearly just assembled a group of people he loves working with. Seeing a bunch of friends having a great time together brings a degree of watchability to even the film’s dullest moments. This group is clearly nostalgic for an era of deliberately stupid comedies that have unfortunately all but vanished in our modern era. And while they miss the mark, it’s frankly exciting just to see people who are willing to put in the work to make comedies like this happen. I wait on bated breath to see if The Napa Boys II: The Napa Boys V: The Spite of Squirm manages to do better.
The Napa Boys is available now on digital. Watch the trailer here.
Images courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. Read more reviews by Brogan Luke Bouwhuis here.
REVIEW RATING
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The Napa Boys - 5/10
5/10
Brogan is a Salt Lake City-based writer and film festival programmer who has watched more Scooby-Doo than the majority of the human population. You can find him on social media at @roboteatsdino or at roboteatsdinosaur.com
