This is one of those genre-spoof films and while it's enjoyable if you're a fan of the independent movie scene, it might have been funnier if it had a little less creative integrity.
The "story" is really just a coat rack on which to hang a bunch of references and observations of the conventions and clichés particular to independent films. It's basically a road trip where the guys from Pulp Fiction (Neil Barton and Eric Hoffman) grab one of the guys from Swingers (Darren Keefe) and head to Las Vegas to pull off a botched robbery in an abandoned warehouse. Along the way they kidnap the Jennifer Aniston character from The Good Girl (Paget Brewster) and run into that guy from Momento (Brian Krow), while the girl from Amelie (Ashley Head) and the guy from Pi (Rob Schrab) pop up throughout the film.
The humor is a mixture of lowbrow fart, poop and sex jokes mixed with sarcastic digs at the highbrow pretensions of indy movies, and there's some genuinely good laughs on both levels. There are legitimate jokes, like when the girl from Amelie runs into the guy from El Mariachi on the highway - absurdist bits, like the foul-mouthed answering machine voiced by Jason Mewes – and general mockery, particularly of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
There are a couple of things that keep the movie from being funnier, however. One is that by focusing on independent movies, it faces a different challenge than other spoofs. The advantage of films like Airplane! or the Scary Movie series is that there are a lot of bad disaster or horror films that plenty of people have seen, so there's a buttload of easy humor targets at which to aim. But most of the independent films that are widely known are actually pretty good, otherwise they would never have become widely known. It's a little like trying to make a gangster spoof if the only gangster movies anyone had ever watched were The Godfather and Goodfellas. My Big Fat Independent Movie has to use really good films like Reservoir Dogs and Sex, Lies and Videotape as stand-ins for all of the really lame, "we're too good to be entertaining" indy movies that most people haven't seen. That's a much tougher comedy feat to pull off.
Another problem is that the filmmakers stay too true to their concept. A lot of spoofs degenerate into stewpots where every joke possible gets thrown in, even if they have nothing to do with the focus of the spoof. And while it has some fart, poop and sex stuff, almost all of the straight comedy tries to stick to making fun of independent movies. That results in the film coming back to the same basic joke more than once and sometimes trying to mock things that aren't easily mockable. Though by sticking to their guns, the filmmakers do end up with some bits that are a lot smarter than you'd see in other spoofs, like the World's Largest Mexican Standoff.
My Big Fat Independent Movie is definitely something you'll enjoy if you've watched a lot of non-Hollywood fare, but there might not be enough laughs for you if you stick with big budget blockbusters all the time.
The "story" is really just a coat rack on which to hang a bunch of references and observations of the conventions and clichés particular to independent films. It's basically a road trip where the guys from Pulp Fiction (Neil Barton and Eric Hoffman) grab one of the guys from Swingers (Darren Keefe) and head to Las Vegas to pull off a botched robbery in an abandoned warehouse. Along the way they kidnap the Jennifer Aniston character from The Good Girl (Paget Brewster) and run into that guy from Momento (Brian Krow), while the girl from Amelie (Ashley Head) and the guy from Pi (Rob Schrab) pop up throughout the film.
The humor is a mixture of lowbrow fart, poop and sex jokes mixed with sarcastic digs at the highbrow pretensions of indy movies, and there's some genuinely good laughs on both levels. There are legitimate jokes, like when the girl from Amelie runs into the guy from El Mariachi on the highway - absurdist bits, like the foul-mouthed answering machine voiced by Jason Mewes – and general mockery, particularly of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
There are a couple of things that keep the movie from being funnier, however. One is that by focusing on independent movies, it faces a different challenge than other spoofs. The advantage of films like Airplane! or the Scary Movie series is that there are a lot of bad disaster or horror films that plenty of people have seen, so there's a buttload of easy humor targets at which to aim. But most of the independent films that are widely known are actually pretty good, otherwise they would never have become widely known. It's a little like trying to make a gangster spoof if the only gangster movies anyone had ever watched were The Godfather and Goodfellas. My Big Fat Independent Movie has to use really good films like Reservoir Dogs and Sex, Lies and Videotape as stand-ins for all of the really lame, "we're too good to be entertaining" indy movies that most people haven't seen. That's a much tougher comedy feat to pull off.
Another problem is that the filmmakers stay too true to their concept. A lot of spoofs degenerate into stewpots where every joke possible gets thrown in, even if they have nothing to do with the focus of the spoof. And while it has some fart, poop and sex stuff, almost all of the straight comedy tries to stick to making fun of independent movies. That results in the film coming back to the same basic joke more than once and sometimes trying to mock things that aren't easily mockable. Though by sticking to their guns, the filmmakers do end up with some bits that are a lot smarter than you'd see in other spoofs, like the World's Largest Mexican Standoff.
My Big Fat Independent Movie is definitely something you'll enjoy if you've watched a lot of non-Hollywood fare, but there might not be enough laughs for you if you stick with big budget blockbusters all the time.