just couldn't make the leap from TV to film, but not bad for TV to video.

Once in a while you have to do something drastic to let your audience know how fair and balanced you can be when you're doing your job. For that reason, I'm tackling a classic bad movie from one of the funniest groups of people in my generation. Run Ronnie Run: The Ronnie Dobbs Story, A Mr. Show Movie was the great transition for Bob Odenkirk and David Cross from premium cable success to movie stardom. It didn't work. And many die-hard Mr. Show fans will tell you, RRR is one of the best movies ever, but their zeal blinds them from the stark reality that RRR is only as good as most sketch-shows turned movies-- caught somewhere between the genius of Wayne's World and the stinking defeat of Night at the Roxbury. RRR is smack-dab in the middle.

Ronnie Dobbs' story is told by Clay, David Koechner, who is a slow-witted southern man who was Ronnie's partner in crime. Ronnie starts as just another guy in the south, until he gets arrested, again and again. There are plenty of funny spots in RRR. For one, the movie's about a guy who gets famous by getting arrested on reality television. We learn that Ronnie has three kids with Tammy, the closest thing to the love of his life. He has three kids named Ronnie too. Ronnie's going to propose to Tammy... again. They get married repeatedly, as a gag. While the town locals bet each other that a dog will/won't eat vomit off the street, we meet the town sheriff, played by M.C. Gainey, who was in tons of bad movies (from Starman to The New Guy). When Ronnie tries to enjoy his last night of bachelor freedom, he ends up running from the cops, which just happened to be shadowed by popular TV show FUZZ, a COPS knock-off. When they finally catch and arrest Ronnie we learn his catch phrase, "Ya'll are brutalizin' me!" Needless to say, Ronnie didn't meet Tammy, and she turns him down when she meets him in prison the next day.

Across the country we meet Terry Twillstein, who is an infomercial producer who can't sell anything, especially after he killed his co-host with the Fooderator, a machine which "destroys food." The editors on Terry's productions introduce him to footage of Ronnie Dobbs, already an underground celebrity. Terry gets the idea to make Ronnie the subject of his own television show. Bob Odenkirk, who plays Terry, makes his role priceless from beginning to end by using one of the most shamefully awful british accents of all time. Ronnie gets propositioned by Terry in a very double-entendre way, which makes for a funny scene, but they both end up getting arrested. The sheriff makes an ultimatum-- Terry can have Ronnie (out of prison), but if Ronnie ever comes back, he'll get put in jail forever. Terry takes Ronnie away and the road to stardom begins.

So why is this bad? I know I haven't been getting obvious on it, but between Terry's bad accent and the original music and the lamest character names ever, it really is a romp through the pits of comedy. But the point of this wasn't to make a political statement or create the next Austin Powers, but it was to have fun, and get paid to do it. In that effort there was maximum success. Once in Hollywood we get an aside, where we are taken to the set of the most popular reality TV show-- Elimination, where a group of people on a desert island get voted off each week-- yes, a Survivor knock-off, which is one of the carnal bad movie rules-- always date your movie so it won't be timeless for future generations (see 1980-1989). Of course Elimination is 100 times funnier than Survivor because they eat the guy voted off. After all, they are on a desert island. Celebrity cameos of the more famous type come in at about this point, when Terry goes to pitch Ronnie to the producers (Dave Foley, Andy Richter, and Sarah Silverman). They eat him up-- they do need something to compete against Elimination.

Enter montage. I've never been a giant fan of montages, especially split-screen ones. The montage establishes the fame of Ronnie in his being arrested on TV. People around the world are loving him. Even at Ronnie's new mansion he's hosting a party to celebrate dethroning Elimination, which boasts guests such as Ben Stiller, John Stamos, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Garry Shandling, Kathy Griffin, and Scott Thompson (who they do a great Gay Conspiracy tangent with-- adding Patrick Warburton, aka Putty, as head of the conspiracy). Now the cliche story goes on with Ronnie meeting Kayla, the cardboard beer girl from his hometown, played by the consistently trashy Nikki Cox. More original music, but this time's more worth it. However there's a music video inserted in the middle of the movie by Three Times One Minus One. The song's hilarious and all, but as a coherent film, it sinks lower and lower. What's worse than a montage? Two-- like 20 minutes apart! This one's to establish a new relationship with Kayla. When you make a good movie with good roles, you don't have to do montages because the characters convey the emotion without having to slap you in the head with it.

When Ronnie tries to get Tammy jealous by showing off Kayla, he gets smacked out by both of them. And you hear the recognizable strum of "Every Rose has its Thorn." Terry is milking the Ronnie Dobbs name with merchandising and a new broadway musical (which I would so see), "Can't a man not control his bitch with violence? Ya'll are brutalizing meeeeee." It's touching shit. In rehearsal, Terry gets pulled away-- Ronnie can't get arrested anymore! We find Ronnie with a Hollywood new-age group led by Tom "Spongebob Squarepants" Kenny. Jeff Goldblum puts forth his most tremendous comedic performance of all time in this scene. The set leaves a bit to be desired. We're not really buying the idea that anyone tried to make a good picture here. Essentially this is a movie with a bunch of funny people being funny. There's no seamless thread holding the scenes together. In fact, the weaker side is that a number of these scenes and lines were already written and performed-- in Mr. Show. Why repeat it for a presumably larger audience? It's quite confusing from my point of view, but I guess if you think about it-- it's a way to get paid with even less work.

Anyway-- Ronnie-- can't get arrested-- this is because he's getting cleaned up. Ronnie admits that it's just not fun anymore. Terry gets Ronnie back on the horse. Now Terry goes to show his affection for Ronnie with an open-mouthed kiss-- strangely placed, but it supports everyone calling Terry gay for the whole movie. We get cut in by the guy who started the movie for us. I skipped that in the beginning because it seemed useless. Sure, it is, but hey, whatever. He says the scene was cut, many scenes get cut from popular films, here's an example, then they do a skit. This is very un-film-like. Then again we get a Jack Black song with some offensive overtones that will make any man laugh his ass off, but it doesn't fit at all. Ronnie goes home, but we don't know why. He wanted to see Tammy, but Terry made it clear that he would be put in jail, so why did he come back? Boom-- he's put in jail, Black Sabbath t-shirt and all. Everything gets all confusing all at once. Terry apologizes for his ills, and Ronnie shares that he was put on death row.

While Terry drowns his sorrows the news comes on to show that the Governor (former sheriff)'s son was kidnapped and can only be returned if Ronnie's released. The Governor doesn't like his son, so he lets them do their thing. The kidnappers are the cast from Elimination, led by R. Lee Ermey. They say they're gonna kill Ronnie and eat him. Ronnie's still in jail and he's gonna get killed. The Governor's kid, before they're about to eat him (he's fat-- yum), flips and kicks everyone's ass over the original tune "Ass-Kickin' Fat Kid" with an already obscure Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon reference. Ermey boasts military skill, but the fat kid beats him in hand to hand combat. Of course when he comes off the scene, the fat kid demands that Ronnie be released, and poof-- he is. Outside of prison he's forced to choose between Terry (Hollywood) and Tammy (Home). They all get together and Ronnie does his work straight from home. Now he denies being rescued instead of getting arrested.

Everything's a happy ending for everyone, which isn't always the sign of a bad movie, but is the sign of a boring one. Ronnie drives off into the sunset in his monster truck. Surprised? Me neither. Anyway, this is thousands of miles above your standard shit comedy like Dude Where's My Car?, but in the end, it's nothing really worth getting excited about, especially for the multitude of people who don't know what Mr. Show is or who half the people in the movie are. For those who are on the up and up, it's a novel effort that took a real chunk out of the credibility that was Mr. Show. Hey-- they still rule ass, just apart.