Our coverage of the movies we saw at the Austin Film Festival keeps moving along! This time I’m talking about Operation Taco Gary’s.
Written and directed by Michael Kvamme, this comedy is a throwback to comedies of the early 2000s, even going so far as to cast Jason Biggs of American Pie fame. The two leads of the film are Simon Rex as Danny and Dustin Milligan as Luke, two brothers that share very little common ground when it comes to the way the world works.
So, is this road trip comedy a nostalgic joyride or does it run out of gas?
My Thoughts
There’s definitely some laughs to be had with Operation Taco Gary’s! The setup is simple, as Luke is getting ready to leave and start his new chapter in Ottawa, to pursue a new job opportunity. Before he leaves, his brother Danny arrives, who is a big time conspiracy theorist and as they hit the road together, it appears that there might be more to these conspiracies than Luke thought.
First, we gotta touch on the cast! Simon Rex definitely stood out the most, but Dustin Milligan was solid as well as the co-lead and the audience surrogate for the movie. The supporting cast here is great though too, with Brenda Song, Tony Cavalero (who is hilarious in this and the HBO series Righteous Gemstones), the previously mentioned Jason Biggs, and the amazing Doug Jones. A solid cast is key to a good comedy and writer/director Michael Kvamme definitely had plenty to work with here!
Another thing that I liked about this movie was the way it actually handled the comedy around the conspiracy theorists in the movie. I found that the movie really balances the idea of laughing at and with the conspiracy theorist characters, which makes it more accessible to anyone and avoids the trap of just repeatedly mocking these kinds of people. It also manages to avoid feeling too much “of its time” by not being hyper focused on the conspiracies of the current era and takes a more creative approach to develop more unique conspiracies for the world of the movie, even if they take some inspiration from the real world occasionally.
The best parts of the movie were a couple sequences in particular that really stood out, including a chase scene through the woods that had the audience at our screening in Austin cringing and laughing in equal measure. In fact, the highest points of the movie for me happened earlier in different scenes that took place in the woods. This hurt the movie a little for me on a pacing level, just because I laughed the hardest before the midpoint of the movie at a couple different sequences that they never really were able to top in the back half of the movie.
On that note, I think the shortfalls of the movie fittingly were a lot of the shortfalls of the early 2000s era comedies. The narrative thread that is propelling the characters forward isn’t the most engaging, for example. It also has a particular brand of humour woven in throughout the movie that just didn’t land with me as consistently as I would’ve hoped, but if you get on its wavelength, you’ll definitely have some pretty consistent laughs.
The third act in particular didn’t work as well for me, as the movie has a more serious moment that really clashes tonally with the rest of the movie. After this moment, I was kind of waiting for the movie to do something to undo that moment or make some light or add some humour to it and they just didn’t.
Verdict
Overall, I liked the commitment to a pure comedy that doesn’t rely on or overload itself with forced emotional moments. It’s definitely a throwback to that early 2000s era of comedies and if you like that idea, I think you will definitely like this movie!
For me, while there were some incredibly solid moments in the first half, I thought the last half didn’t work as well. The movie doesn’t overstay its welcome, thanks the lean runtime, which kept it from feeling like a chore in the back half, even if it didn’t work as well for me.
Still, if you’re looking for a break from the world, there’s definitely laughs to be had with Operation Taco Gary’s!
Adriana Wiszniewska