Commercials for MacGruber have been airing for weeks, proudly boasting quotes that refer to it as “the best SNL skit movie since Wayne’s World” and “arguably the best action-comedy since Beverly Hills Cop.” Such outsized blurbs — usually accompanied by miniscule attributions — have long been a sine qua non of movie marketing strategy, but what makes MacGruber’s case unique is that its praise came not from the usual studio fluffers, but from The Atlantic, the venerable 150-year-old publication that counts the likes of Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson among its founders. Calling anything “the best SNL skit movie since ...” may be faint praise akin to "You're the smartest stripper I've ever met," but it’s still impressive for a film based on a shtick that typically struggles to conjure enough laughs to fill a two-minute sketch.And it’s true. MacGruber star Will Forte and director Jorma Taccone (who also co-wrote the film along with John Solomon), much like the character Richard Dean Anderson they mercilessly parody, took the scrap that was their middling SNL sketch and somehow turned it into one of the funniest films of the year.
The film, which pits the super-handy MacGruber against his sworn enemy, a nuke-stealing terrorist named Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer, gracefully entering the self-mocking stage of his career and selling it like a champ), works in part because it heartily exploits all the advantages unavailable to its television counterpart: a hard-R rating that lets it showcase, among other things, MacGruber’s unmatched throat-ripping skills and his willingness to suck a c**k to save American lives (let's see Jack Bauer try that); a script that clearly took more than a week — possibly as many as two — to construct; and guest stars who actually care enough to learn all of their lines. Forte's SNL co-star Kristen Wiig is fantastic as MacGruber's partner/love interest — a role more crucial to the comedy than you'd think — and even the much-maligned (by me, mainly) Ryan Phillippe is pleasantly serviceable opposite Forte as his beleaguered straight man. In fact — dare I say it — he’s almost likable.
