‘Idiots’ Review: A Maximalist and Outrageous (Dumb) Comedy
What you need to know about Macon Blair’s Idiots is simple: this movie is very dumb. The film follows two idiots, Mark (Dave Franco) and Davis (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), as they are tasked with a very simple assignment: transport a troubled teenager to a rehabilitation facility. The two individuals recently lost their respective jobs and have now found a gig that pays incredibly well. The only problem is that the teenager is internet celebrity Sheridan Kimberly (Mason Thames), who plans to escape from their clutches before he arrives.
It’s a lot to take in. Especially when the film moves relentlessly and keeps you on edge, showcasing just how stupid Davis is, as a former parishioner no longer of service after he brought a group of children to see Lars von Trier’s Antichrist. We then cut to Mark, whose actions are the polar opposite of Davis’, but just as stupid. Paired together, the actors are dynamite, which is the primary reason why Idiots works so well.
Idiots was previously titled The Shitheads during its world premiere at Sundance (the title was likely censored after IFC picked it up). Lars von Trier is thanked in the end credits, which leads me to think the new title was inspired by his 1998 Dogme 95 film.
Idiots (2026) is a fun comedy despite some glaring flaws
Blair has been doing solid work as an actor for a long time but has mostly been underappreciated as a filmmaker in the genre sphere. His past works, I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore and The Toxic Avenger, should genuinely have a bigger fanbase than they currently do. Idiots may not be as strong as his previous two films, but it deftly follows the aesthetic imprints he’s introduced in his directing efforts and still manages to provide a solid time at the movies.
His visual approach for Idiots seems simultaneously scrappy and intricate. There’s one ingenious split diopter that occurs at a pivotal dramatic turn, which propels the rest of the movie into motion. It’s a film that frequently surprises with its smart visual choices and surprisingly nasty bodily humor that isn’t afraid to push significant buttons.
Both Franco and Jackson Jr. know how to operate within the parameters Blair sets for them. His screenplay certainly enjoys testing the audience’s patience as the characters go from one repetitive situation to the next.
The best sequences occur at a motel, where the anticipation of something crazy is constantly teased by its filmmaker, whose camera moves around the space to draw the audience’s attention to specific elements. The resulting gags that happen are unexpectedly hilarious but also highlight genuine pain in the protagonists’ eyes that they can’t help but shake.
When Blair explores this aspect of Davis, Mark, and Sheridan, the film awakens from its cyclical structure to present a thoughtful, often moving character study of people who don’t know how to do any better and won’t actively improve. But that’s part of the charm: they’re idiots, but lovable ones, no matter how shortsighted their decisions may be.
Where Blair’s film falls off and almost doesn’t recover
The filmmaker knows how stupid it needs to be to sell such a proposition, and understands what can make a movie like this work or not. It’s thus unfortunate that with such a confident eye behind the camera, Idiots’ latter half is a chore to sit through.
Once a duo of antagonists are introduced, Koko (Peter Dinklage) and Pricka Bush the Werewolf (Nicholas Braun), the movie takes a massive nosedive. It almost never recovers, if it weren’t for an eleventh-hour miracle of gore that practically saves this overlong sequence from cratering out.
Dinklage, a friend of Blair, certainly enjoys playing an extremely online “vigilante,” but Braun is so painfully miscast (and unfunny) that the whole thing just reeks of flopsweat.
It gets tediously repetitious and overlong as it attempts to reach an emotional conclusion for its protagonists. However, that point never fully arrives, because it takes a thousand detours to finally make Mark (and Davis) “grow” in their respective eccentricities without much depth beyond striving to be better, but not really.
Final thoughts on Idiots
Macon Blair does know how to effectively compensate for the lack of an actual denouement by focusing primarily on his two leading men. They never falter for a second, even if the film itself does. They’re the reason Idiots remains a fun time at the movies, irrespective of its inconsistencies.
If you’ve seen the biggest movies playing in theatres and want something new, you can’t do wrong with this one, although I can’t be sure if everyone will like it. Blair’s movies are definitely an acquired taste, and Idiots undoubtedly falls in that category, for better or worse.
