Review: A Futile And Stupid Gesture, Netflix

It’s getting increasingly difficult to keep up with all of the comedy coming out of Netflix. I’d only just finished the excellent The Good Place when A Futile And Stupid Gesture popped up. At least it's a film rather than a series marathon so it can be ticked off in one enjoyable sitting.

If you are a comedy fan and/or a fan of comedy history it is certainly worth a look. AFASG tells the story of National Lampoon, from it’s early college origins onwards. This may well mean more in America than in the UK. To be honest I only vaguely know about National Lampoon magazine, which I would file alongside Mad. However I do know National Lampoon’s Animal House and Caddyshack.

In a way the story of pretty generic. The focus is on Doug Kenney, who co-edited Lampoon magazine at Harvard and was having such a good time – and making money – he decided to continue co-running it after he left. Success led to the usual things – bust-ups, divorce, drugs – and the film almost revels in Kenney’s excess and the furniture throwing antics in the office. They seem to be having so much high-energy hedonistic fun it is amazing to think that they ever produced a magazine, never mind a hugely successful one.

As for the humour of the magazine, it’s not necessarily one that travels. It’s oddball, certainly, but not in the same way as, say, Monty Python. Food fights are something of a leitmotif of the film. The magazine also had a penchant for what would now certainly be called sexist imagery. Though it might also have claimed to be political - some of it’s pop culture spoofs had echoes of British hippy magazine Oz. 

The story, directed by David Wain, is told with neat postmodern gusto Martin Mull plays an older version of Kenney who keeps popping up to comment on the action, sometimes even saying what we are thinking, such as when he notes that the actor playing Kenney, Will Forte, looks way too old to be a Harvard student. He also address the lack of black contributors to the magazine - justifying it jokily by saying there is a lack of Jews too.

As Kenney gets successful, globally familiar figures come into the story. Matt Lucas plays Tony Hendra, the Footlights alumnus later destined to be best known as Ian Faith, the public school manager of Spinal Tap. And actors playing John Belushi, Bill Murray and Chevy Chase turn up too as Lampoon moves to radio and then film.

But somehow it all went wrong. The Zucker Brothers Airplane! seemed to corner the market in gross-out comedy just as Caddyshack was released. Though, as the wry commentary says, Caddyshack will later be reassessed. Not that that did much for Kenney’s ego at the time.

A Futile And Stupid Gesture manages to tell the story of a comedy cult and also be pretty accessible to those that know nothing of the comedy cult in question. Take a look. It is impossible to dislike a film that admits the actor playing the lead looks too old for the part and none of the other actors look like the actors they are portraying.

Watch on netflix.com.

Articles on beyond the joke contain affiliate ticket links that earn us revenue. BTJ needs your continued support to continue - if you would like to help to keep the site going, please consider donating.

Zircon - This is a contributing Drupal Theme
Design by WeebPal.