Paddleton
Director: Alex Lehmann
Year Released: 2019
Rating: 1.0
When Michael (Mark Duplass) is informed he has terminal cancer, his (only?) friend Andy (Ray Romano) - the two have a fondness for pizza, some makeshift racketball-type game they invented and kung fu movies (how special!) - takes him on a trip to get medicine that will end his life ... and then he takes it. And then he dies. And then life goes on. Let me get this right: you have Ray Romano, a skilled comedian, and Mark Duplass, who can be very funny ... and then you record them moping around and have Romano rant and rave and then have your one character commit (assisted) suicide and think you have a fully fleshed-out movie? It's glib to the point of being insulting: it plays around with this idea of 'true' friendship as "someone willing to help you cease to exist in human form" but it's so deeply disingenuous and hollow it actually trivializes suffering. Sorry, but life isn't a hastily-punched out Sundance script.
