Financed with their online sketch videos, DERRICK comedy's first feature film, Mystery Team, is non-stop hilarity. Not a string of sketch videos but its own stand-alone film, it's an extremely successful attempt at feature comedy with a ridiculously high joke per minute ratio. What's astounding isn't how many jokes are packed into it but how funny they actually are and how organic they are to the story, not slowing the narrative down but actually supporting and advancing it, something most of the top comedic filmmakers of today can't pull off as successfully as DERRICK does.
You should know, the DERRICK comedy troupe members are:
DC Pierson - story, script
Donald Glover - story, script (#donald4spiderman)
Dan Eckman - story, director, editor
Dominic Dierkes - story, script
Meggie McFadden - story, producer
Erik Davis over at Cinematical describes the film as "Encyclopedia Brown meets Napoleon Dynamite." It is. The story's about a band of three fledgling teenage sleuths who are about to graduate high school. They are Jason (Glover), Duncan (DC) and Charlie (Dominic.) For the past ten years, they've been solving low key, childish mysteries, mysteries no greater than vandalized pies and stolen tricycles but then they get a new client, a little girl who hires them out to solve her own mystery, the murder of her parents.
If there's a sub-genre of "teen amateur detective" films, you might think this is a spoof but it is not. Although it's funnier than any spoof can ever be, it's a genuine story about these burgeoning detectives and their most trying case.
Shot over 7 weeks in the spring of '08 in Manchester, New Hampshire, Mystery Team screened at the New Hampshire Film Festival and Sundance in '09. Although it didn't get picked up at Sundance, the six Sundance showings served as a series of test screenings informing DERRICK on how to tighten the film up a bit, where they eventually cut out about 14 minutes. Then after a few post-Sundance screenings in L.A. and New York and being promoted heavily on the web, it was picked up in May of last year by Roadside Attractions, Lionsgate's indie label.
All five members of DERRICK comedy outlined the general arc of the script in their livingroom/s before handing off an act to DC, Donald and Dominic to go off and write on their own. Then after combining the three acts into a script, they did approximately "3 billion joke passes" until each joke was perfect. The script was then tweaked around their New Hampshire locations and they shot away.
As tight as the script is, so is the direction and cinematography, particularly some of the blocking and camera movement that you'd never expect from an internet sketch group, such as the roving shot of the Mystery Team taking off on their bikes and passing the little girl on hers, who is about to become their client with their most serious assignment. Also, there's the shot of the three detectives being chased through the woods where Jason is dangerously lagging behind Duncan and Charlie as they slow down to reassess the threat of their pursuer, only to have Jason and his pursuer in tow zip through the frame. Watch it with a jam packed audience and you'll laugh your ass off at this inspired piece of blocking.
The DVD is now out and available online from Lionsgate but if you're ever fortunate enough to happen upon a theatrical screening of the film, go for it and bring your friends.
9/10
