Run Ronnie Run (2003)
Directed by Troy Miller
Written by David Cross, Bob Odenkirk, Scott Aukerman, B.J Porter, Brian Posehn
Starring David Cross, Bob Odenkirk, David Koechner, Jill Talley, Ben Stiller, Jack Black
Release Date September 16th, 2003
Published December 15th, 2003
Being a huge fan of the HBO series “Mr. Show with Bob & David,” I have been hearing for a very long while about the film based on one of the show’s best sketches, Run Ronnie Run. The story of the most arrested man in America, one Ronnie Dobbs, Run Ronnie Run went into production in November of 2000 and premiered at the Sundance film festival in 2001. So how come you have never seen it in theaters or on video? Because New Line Cinema decided not to release the film. The cynical bastards behind Dumb and Dumberer decided not to release Run Ronnie Run???
Maybe that is for the best, because though the film has some truly inspired hysterical moments, the compromised version that has seeped out through various sources is not quite what it's creators had hoped. Based on characters created in the first season of Mr. Show, Run Ronnie Run is the story of Ronnie Dobbs (David Cross), a Georgia redneck who enjoys getting drunk and raising hell. He occasionally lives in a trailer with his three illegitimate kids, all named Ronnie Jr., and his common law wife Tammy (Mr. Show regular Jill Talley).
Ronnie gains notoriety after his numerous drunken arrests on the faux Cops show Fuzz catch the attention of a British TV producer named Terry Twillstein (Bob Odenkirk). Terry immediately heads to Georgia and, after bailing Ronnie out of jail, brings Ronnie to Hollywood. Together they pitch a TV show in which Ronnie will travel the country getting arrested while being followed by a camera crew.
The show is an immediate smash, but fame gets the better of Ronnie. Before long he is holding big celebrity parties and sleeping with the model from his favorite beer commercial, rather than drinking beer with his old friends or watching a mangy dog eat vomit. As his friends say, “Ronnie, you've changed man.” Soon Ronnie has quit drinking and can't even get arrested.
It's a smart, funny satire of the classic rags to riches, fame corrupts story told in a surprisingly straight linear story. Whereas on Mr. Show both Bob and David play multiple characters in one episode, in the movie they generally remain as one character, save for a couple of dream sequences. The film does hint at other Mr. Show sketches, including a dream sequence music video of Bob and David's pop band send up 3 times 1 minus 1. There’s also a brilliant revision of their Ronnie Dobbs sketch "Fuzz: The Musical" with Mandy Patinkin as Ronnie.
There are a number of brilliant moments in Run Ronnie Run like Ronnie's uncovering of the worldwide gay conspiracy with an excellent cameo by Kids in the Hall star Scott Thompson and Seinfeld's Patrick Warburton. Also there’s an odd but brilliant outtake with Jack Black as the Dick Van Dyke character in Mary Poppins singing a song that has to be heard to be believed. F-CKING BRILLIANT!
That said, the cut I saw seems somewhat compromised and lacks the snap of the sketch version. Ronnie is a little more sweet and sympathetic, as is the character of Tammy. What made Ronnie brilliant on the show was his complete self delusion that encapsulated every Neanderthal, shirtless redneck in the history of the show, Cops. The guys on Cops are not sympathetic characters. They are often drunken, homophobic wife beaters, which Ronnie was in the sketch. But those traits are either excised or underplayed in the film version and that tames much of the satire.
Nevertheless, the worst of Run Ronnie Run is far funnier than anything in New Line's Dumb and Dumberer, and that thing was dumped into the theaters on 2000+ screens. They could at least put Ronnie out on DVD (Ed. Note – Run Ronnie Run will be released on DVD in September 2003). It may not be everything it's genius creators had in mind but it's as good or better than most modern comedies.
