{"id":541059,"date":"2026-01-25T05:01:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T05:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/541059\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T05:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T05:01:10","slug":"macon-blairs-funny-druggy-shaggy-dog-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/541059\/","title":{"rendered":"Macon Blair\u2019s Funny, Druggy Shaggy Dog Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWant to see Peter Dinklage<\/a> dressed like a Juggalo and waving an Uzi? Macon Blair<\/a>\u2019s follow-up to The Toxic Avenger is full of surprises like that, a goofily violent stoner romp-slash-caper that likely would have been called Coenesque back in the not-so-distant past. Dumb and Dumber meets Midnight Run better reflects the premise; despite the abrasive, sweary title, The Sh*theads is actually a really rather endearing buddy movie, with O\u2019Shea Jackson Jr. \u2014 looking the very image of his father \u2014 and Dave Franco<\/a> as two sad-sack losers thrown together by circumstance and pitched against a very formidable foe.<\/p>\n

\n\tDavis (Jackson) is the first of the duo we meet, being hauled over the coals by a priest for his ill-thought-out decision to take a busload of parishioners\u2019 children to see, of all things, Lars Von Trier\u2019s Antichrist. That was his first strike, the second \u2014 and, for the priest, the kicker \u2014 is that he didn\u2019t pack up the kids and leave even after the first instance of unsimulated sex (\u201cYou saw a dong and you stayed for the rest of the movie?\u201d). Cut to Mark (Dave Franco), a less-than-model employee who sits at his desk vaping, drinking coffee laced with bourbon and watching scuzzy betting show Scum Brawlz on his computer screen.<\/p>\n

\n\tBoth are immediately relieved of their responsibilities, but Davis has a second job, which is how he pairs up with Mark, working for a company run by a woman named Dorindo. This is her side hustle, as we find out in one of the film\u2019s many funny sight gags, and it involves ferrying disturbed young people to rehab. Mark thinks this means \u201cpsychos, junkies and sh*t\u201d, but Davis is more empathetic. \u201cJust follow my lead on this,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019re not a cop or a bounty hunter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUsing Mark\u2019s beat-up car, their first assignment is Sheridan Kimberley (Mason Thames<\/a>), heir to a vast business fortune and suffering from \u201cemotional issues\u201d as a result of his parents\u2019 divorce. Sheridan is a major piece of work, and it\u2019s a while before we realize just how stupid Davis and Mark are; he\u2019s a famous \u2014 no, notorious \u2014 YouTube prankster whose criminal antics are covered up by his rich family (\u201cThat kid\u2019s a f*cking legend,\u201d a passer-by later notes). A mysterious puncture means a new tire must be acquired, since Mark is naturally too dim to drive with a spare, and so the three check into a motel for the night. Which is where the story really begins, once Sheridan finds Mark\u2019s formidable drug stash.<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowers of Blair\u2019s career will immediately see comparisons with his earlier acting work in the two films he made with Jeremy Saulnier (2013\u2019s Blue Ruin and 2015\u2019s Green Room). But if Saulnier has taken a slightly more straightforward genre route since then, Blair has marshalled those very same neo-noir tropes down an altogether more anarchic road, and it\u2019s to his credit as a screenwriter that the shaggy-dog nature of the story always feels organic not matter how outlandish\u00a0\u2014 not to mention scatological \u2014 the digressions become.<\/p>\n

\n\tCasting could not be better; Franco has played this kind of charmingly na\u00efve and likable wrong \u2019un before, but it\u2019s a role he plays well \u2014 Mark is a loser who doesn\u2019t realize he\u2019s even lost and whose life advice to Sheridan is rather telling (\u201cSometimes you gotta eat shit; the trick is not to ask for seconds\u201d). Star of the show, however, is Jackson as Davis, the gentle giant, a Godly man who means well but harbors an explosive temper, and the entire film is peppered with his earnest apologies, the most memorable being issued to the motel manager for insulting him with the best yo\u2019 mama joke ever (\u201cYo\u2019 mama was an extra in Labyrinth!\u201d). Between these two big personalities, Thames fits in perfectly, a seemingly nondescript rich kid who turns out to be a chillingly amoral agent of chaos.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt would be a stretch to interpret Sh*theads as a biting political satire, but, like Adam McKay\u2019s The Other Guys, there is a definitely strong and very intentional vein of social comment here. In fact, it covers two very real current trends, one being the rise of the internet troll, whose antisocial antics \u2014 like the infamous Johnny Somali \u2014 are invariably at the expense of normal working people. The other, and much more subtle, is the rise and rise of bribe culture in today\u2019s pardon-happy America, where money talks and felons walk. When you look at the world like that, people like Davis and Mark are the salt of the earth, which, on reflection, just might be a better description of them than the sh*theads.<\/p>\n

\n\tTitle:<\/strong> The Sh*theads
Festival:<\/strong> Sundance<\/a> (Premieres)
Sales:<\/strong> WME\/CAA
Director\/screenwriter:<\/strong> Macon Blair
Cast:<\/strong> Dave Franco, O\u2019Shea Jackson Jr., Mason Thames, Kiernan Shipka, Nicholas Braun
Peter Dinklage
Running time:<\/strong> 1 hr 40 mins<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Want to see Peter Dinklage dressed like a Juggalo and waving an Uzi? Macon Blair\u2019s follow-up to The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":541060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[37095,171,30599,75220,53,238718,39938,2290,46541,238719,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-541059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-dave-franco","tag-entertainment","tag-macon-blair","tag-mason-thames","tag-movies","tag-oshea-jackson","tag-peter-dinklage","tag-review","tag-sundance","tag-the-shitheads","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115953984084232503","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}