Actor and comedy fan Vince Vaughn curates a comedy tour in the U.S. heartland in Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show
In 2005, Vince Vaughn gathered four of his favourite comedians from The Comedy Store in Los Angeles and set out on a month-long tour. The show, an homage to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Variety Show with Vaughn as emcee, is documented in Vince Vaughn’s Comedy Wild West Show, a cross between a documentary and a concert film, and far removed from anything Vaughn has done before.
Though Vaughn gets top billing, the stars here are the four comics. Bret Ernst is the guy from Jersey, Sebastian Maniscalco is the metrosexual, John Capuralo is the foul-mouthed complainer and Ahmed Ahmed is the Egyptian-American. We learn the source of their comedy, meet their families and get a glimpse of how tough it is to get onstage. After all, as the film points out, “anybody can be funny, but not everyone can be a comedian.”
It’s a treat to see the comics change over the 30 days of the tour, but, more importantly, the film shows that the entertainers are real people whose hearts break with the boos and rise with the applause. Comedy is an emotional business, and these guys can’t imagine doing anything else. Much of the film is dedicated to small-town America — we follow the bus across the U.S. Midwest and into the South, where hurricane Katrina throws the tour for a loop and adds a touch of weight to the lightness of the film. Things never get too bogged down, though, and especially during the performances, you can forget you’re watching a film.
Director Ari Sandell has taken thousands of hours of footage and carved out a genuine narrative for audiences to follow. His approach to filming Vaughn’s tour has opened the door to onscreen standup comedy, in a format that goes beyond the usual concert DVD. It brings comedy to movie fans and a little cinema to comedy fans.
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