‘Buddy Games’

“Reno 911” comic Nick Swardson dominates writer & director Josh Duhamel’s smutty cinematic debut comedy “Buddy Games” (*1/2 OUT OF **** ), a raunchy, R-rated farce that struggles to imitate the uninhibited glory days of the “Jackass” television & film series. Swardson cavorts throughout this lowbrow nonsense with his usual mischievous glee, while his co-stars look uncomfortable chugging semen-spiked cocktails and sharing gratuitous genitalia jokes. This tame slapstick saga relies on a plethora of tasteless gags and politically incorrect jokes that never surpass those crude “Jackass” jokes and gags. Since our motley crew of protagonists were irresponsible youths, they have nurtured their lifelong camaraderie by indulging in an annual succession of outlandish private games that test their masculinity. Most of the games, such as cramming as many corndogs as possible down one’s gullet as well as guzzling beer galore to get them drunk, are harmless fratboy doings by comparison with their pre-game and postgame horseplay. Clearly, less thoughtful audiences may find these bizarre exercises in juvenile delinquency ribtickling. Traditionally, this gauntlet of games concludes with ever resilient winner, Shelly (Dan Bakkedahl of “Get Hard”), an obnoxious lout of an individual, exulting in his superiority. After somebody shoots him in his privates with a paintball pistol, Shelly is never the same. He refuses to believe he can never be a biological father. Waxing suicidal, this lunatic retreats from reality until his frantic mom summons Bob (Josh Duhamel of the “Transformers” franchise), who invented the games, to start them again. These imbeciles make the Three Stooges look like intellectual titans. Rather than poking each other’s eyeballs, they poke each other elsewhere.

Ouch! Reportedly, Duhamel claims his real-life friends and he have been partaking in similar games for twenty years. “Obviously, the movie is much more heightened than anything we do.” Nevertheless, the freshman helmer captures little of either the allure or the hilarity of their amateur Olympics in his morons-at-play melodrama.

Although this group consists of six guys, Shelly and Bender (Nick Swardson) generate the greatest amount of pugnacity in Duhamel’s cretinous screenplay. Typically, every time Bob holds the “Buddy Games,” Shelly wins without a shadow of competition and rubs everybody’s nose in it. Truth be told, Dan Bakkedahl has a blast playing Shelly. Meantime, Bender is the underdog, but the punky little Swardson makes Bender into a never-ending nuisance for Shelly. The flak Bender takes from Shelly is eternal. Meantime, Shelly never lets anybody forget about his triumphs. Surprisingly, he perpetrates his most disgusting prank on somebody other than Bender! Everything comes to a head, so to speak, when Shelly singles out Zane (James Roday Rodriguez of “Beerfest”), for supreme humiliation. Shelly straddles Zane’s chair on the edge of a dock overlooking a huge lake and drags his jewelry across Zane’s face while his unsuspecting friend indulges in an afternoon siesta.

For the record, notorious indie filmmaker John Waters claims credit for being the first to recognize this nasty prank by its innocuous name. According to Waters, “‘Teabagging’ is by my definition the act of dragging your testicles across your partner’s forehead. In the Uk--the United Kingdom-it is dipping your testicles in your partner’s mouth. I didn’t invent the term or the act but DID introduce it to film in my movie “Pecker” (1998). ‘Teabagging’ was a popular dance step that male go-go boys did to their customers for tips at The Atlantis, a now-defunct bar in Baltimore.” The prank amuses everybody in the group. Of course, the jewelry Shelly smothers Zane’s face with is not genuine. Instead, it is a hilariously oversized prosthetic! Bender observes this odious display of arrogance from a faraway table. The rude humor of the moment, however, eludes Shelly’s babelicious girlfriend, Nikki (Lucie Guest of “Postal”), who abhors his vulgar shenanigans. She picks up a paintball pistol and hands the gun to Bender.

Initially, Bender toys with the prospect of shooting his old friend in the privates. Believe it or not, there is more to this scene than meets the eye when the act takes place. Director Josh Duhamel reserves a momentary close-up to the marble-sized, green paintball ploughing through the air and piercing Shelly’s jewel box. Shelly topples clear of Zane and plunges into the lake. An ambulance arrives, and the attendants haul Shelly away on a stretcher. Later, in the nursing home where Bob reunites with him for the first time since the incident, Shelly explains not only did he lose his left one, but also the surgeon had to remove the right one. Eventually, Shelly’s wife Nikki divorced him and took every dime. Now, Shelly’s mother, Mary Ann (Linda Darlow of “The Accused”), summons Bob to save her son from suicide. She insists Bob is the only man who can salvage what remains of Shelly.

All the guys refer to Bob as ‘the Bobfather,’ because he creates the obstacle course. Shelly wants to recover his self-confidence and dignity. Eagerly, Shelly accepts Bob’s challenge for a buddy games reboot. Shelly has one condition. On no account must Bob allow Bender entrance. Bob easily recruits their old buddies, but imagine his quandary when Bender wants in the new buddy game, too. Bob lies to Bender about a $10-thousand-dollar entry fee. Indeed, Bob hopes the fee will discourage Bender. Adamant about a reconciliation with Shelly, Bender hocks everything for the ten grand! Predictably, Shelly is crushed when Bender arrives, but he unleashes the prankster within himself. Naturally, Shelly weaponizes the nine vials of sperm Bender gave him as compensation for his reproductive inability. Surprisingly, we learn Bender may have been wrongly accused of the paintball shot that led to Shelly’s castration! In a publicity interview, Duhamel laughs, “I’ll warn you right know, there’s a caveat. Most of the things you see in this movie don’t actually happen. But it is wild, it is fun, it is competitive. It’s really about friendship.” At best, “Buddy Games” adds little to the dubious bedrock of cinematic male camaraderie with its goofy fratboy gags!