Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights—Hollywood to the Heartland

Comments (0) By Robert Wilonsky Tuesday, Jan 29 2008

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Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights�Hollywood to the Heartland
Directed by Ari Sandel
Picturehouse, opens February 8

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Even at 100 minutes, this documentary about Vaughn and pals' 2005 bus tour from L.A. to Chicago (and all points in between, oy) plays a little long—due to the "comedy show" part mostly, which is filled with such antiquated bits as "Starbucks customers order the damnedest things," "dudes who show off their iPods in the gym are douchebags," and "techno music's for tone-deaf stoners." Echoing the far more successful Comedians of Comedy, Ari Sandel's backstage-diving doc showcases the grind of life on the road. Only Vaughn's fab foursome—amiable irritant John Caparulo, nostalgic Bret Ernst, would-be waiter Sebastian Maniscalco, and proud Muslim Ahmed Ahmed—are thrilled to be along for the ride. The doc provides plenty of backstory (meeting the comics' families offers generous context to material heard earlier in the film). But in the end, it's the bits involving Vaughn and his celeb guests that linger, chief among them two re- enactments: one in which Justin Long reads Vaughn's Swingers part with Jon Favreau, and other in which Vaughn re-enacts his role in a 1991 CBS Schoolbreak Special about steroid use with his actual co-star, A Christmas Story's all-growed-up Peter Billingsley. Also on hand: Dwight Yoakam, Buck Owens, and Keir O'Donnell—or, as he's always referred to, "the gay guy" from Wedding Crashers.