Entourage movie review: say goodbye to Hollywood

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Entourage red light

Hollywood does kinda make sense now: it’s a neverending frat party of talentless rich bastards.
I’m “biast” (pro): nothing

I’m “biast” (con): not a fan of the show

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

Did you know that Hollywood is really just a bunch of sex-crazed pathetic middle-aged white guys punch-drunk from ogling babes in bikinis and woozy with their own arrogance, and movies get made when they throw temper tantrums? Entourage is here to tell you that this is true, just like it told us this over and over again during eight seasons on HBO. (Disclaimer: I quit after the first season. I was soiled enough by that point.) Maybe now we’ll believe them? Lest you suspect this is parody, all you need do is look at Entourage itself, which desperately wants you to accept that “Vince Chase” is one of the biggest movie stars in the world, even though he is portrayed by Adrian Grenier (The Devil Wears Prada), who has all the onscreen charisma of a bowl of corn flakes. The movie does not succeed in this task, but how else to account for its existence at all, unless someone with more money than artistry shouted at terrified and traumatized underlings until it happened? Here, Vince’s former agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven: Sin City: A Dame to Kill For) is now the head of a major studio — he raged until they gave him the job, we might easily be convinced — and of course he is going to give his favorite client $100 million to star in and direct a vanity project, even though he’s never directed a movie before. What are friends for? (The rest of Vince’s friends are for riding his coattails, especially his slimy sexist pig of a brother, played by Kevin Dillon [Hotel for Dogs] as if being a 50-year-old horndog creep were a virtue.) The snippets we see of Vince’s movie, Hyde, suggest he ripped off Strange Days, which he probably did. There may not be a likable or even vaguely intriguing character in the mix here, and Entourage: The Pointless Big Screen Adaptation may be a trial to sit through, but Hollywood does kinda make sense now: it’s a neverending frat party of talentless rich bastards.


See also my #WhereAreTheWomen rating of Entourage for its representation of girls and women.

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RogerBW
RogerBW
Wed, Jun 17, 2015 8:24am

I always wonder, with films like this: do they expect to bring in significant numbers of people who haven’t seen the series, or are fans of the series a sufficient audience to make a reasonable return? The trailers certainly seemed to assume I would already know who these people were.

MaryAnn Johanson
reply to  RogerBW
Wed, Jun 17, 2015 10:59am

It’s a real mystery with this show, which wasn’t that popular. It has completely tanked in syndication in the US: it keeps getting dropped because literally no one is watching it.

LaSargenta
LaSargenta
reply to  MaryAnn Johanson
Wed, Jun 17, 2015 1:16pm

A friend nagged me into watching an episode with her. She’s an actor and apparently there’s a bunch of in-jokes in the tv show that she loves. My impression was that it was Sex and the City for guys.

Jonathan Roth
Jonathan Roth
reply to  MaryAnn Johanson
Fri, Jun 19, 2015 2:46pm

Cracked.com did a video where they theorized the series was an enormous practical joke played on the principal cast. Makes about as much sense as anything.

(My money’s still on “rich asshole vanity project” though)

Danielm80
Danielm80
reply to  RogerBW
Wed, Jun 17, 2015 11:52am

My theory is that Mark Wahlberg refused to star in some tentpole movie unless Entourage got made.

I’ll admit to liking the series. I haven’t seen the movie, either.

David
David
Mon, Jul 06, 2015 2:02pm

Shit I already knew that about Hollywood. Also, they are a bunch of racist and sexist pigs who love to lecture everyone else on racism and sexism. Occasionally though you do get a Scorsese, Spielberg, or Nolan.