Film of the Week: Impractical Jokers – The Movie

Impractical Jokers is a highly successful American show where four life-long friends compete in challenges in attempt to embarrass each other. The four Jokers, Sal, Joe, Q, and Murr, refer their show as a reverse prank show, because the punchline isn’t on the strangers, but instead on themselves. If you fail to do whatever the others tell you to do, you lose the task and the Joker who lost the most number of times in an episode must undertake a punishment. These punishments are harsher than the challenges, and the rules stipulate that if you say no within these punishments, you’re off the show.

The TV show has gained a loyal audience, most notably in America and here in England, even selling out arenas where they tell crazy stories about what’s been going on in their life in between filming the show. I’ve been to one of these live performances at the O2, in London, and I did enjoy it. If you’re unable to find the show on TV when you need a good fix of comedy, you can watch clips on YouTube on the official True TV channel.

The show has been going on for 8 seasons now, and with the show being as popular as it currently is, there shouldn’t be an end in sight. There have been many speculations throughout the show’s run regarding whether it is scripted or not, and the Jokers have stated numerous times that the show is not scripted at all, that every reaction from the public is real. Which intrigued me about the movie because that was going to have a story, and a story needs to be scripted, which means people needs to learn their lines and cues.

The movie blended script and realness together. The story focused on four friends who embarrassed themselves at a party whilst in high school and 25 years later they’re invited back to that party under the guise of being famous, and the four of them see this as an opportunity to redeem what happened years ago. The problem is they’ve only been given 3 tickets instead of 4, so they play challenges to see who can go and who must be left behind. Under the true nature of the show, the challenges aren’t scripted, but the story sections in between are. And in between these challenges they also give each other one punishment each as well, which again is not scripted. The question is, does the film work?

The simple answer is yes, but mainly if you’re a fan of the show. If you’re going into this film blind without any prior knowledge, the punishments will seem a little out of place. As a fan of the show, I wasn’t quite sure what I should be expecting, except that they would be doing the challenges, and my conclusion is, it’s not a film you should watch with the intention of critiquing it. Yes, I’m aware I’m writing this review, therefore contradicting what I just said, but bear with me. From the perspective of a critic, the story was hollow and clunky, and the acting could have been better, but from the perspective of a fan of the show, it’s a standard episode of the show, with a story, featuring four real-life friends simply having fun. Murr’s subtle characteristic choice of being the victim in the show was ramped up for comedic affect, which was blatantly planned, which did lead me to predict the ending.

If you’re a fan and want a good long laugh, then there’s nothing wrong with this film, but if you’re not a fan of the show and see this film and get curious, be prepared to be confused – you may need to do some homework with a couple episodes of the show before fully appreciating the film in its entirety.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)