Strange Wilderness
Directed by Fred Wolf
Starring Steve Zahn, Allen Covert, Jonah Hill
Rated R
Release date: Feb. 1, 2008

Strange Wilderness is the funniest comedy that I had to endure since Borat. That’s all I need to say. Some may be surprised why I would give such praise to a movie distributed by the guys over at Happy Madison, but I sat there laughing so hard that eventually I snorted up my chicken fried rice by mistake. Strange Wilderness will go down into the books as one of the funniest movies that I will ever see within my hopefully long life.

And I don’t give a shit WHAT you say.

Strange Wilderness tells the tale of Peter Gaulke (Steve Zahn). Gaulke’s father was originally the Steve Irwin of his generation, but once he died, he passed his hit TV show to his son, and hell broke loose. Peter’s show has been getting low ratings due to the fact that his show comes on at three in the morning, so in two weeks, his show will be off the air.

One of his friends receives a map where Bigfoot is, and offers a proposition to sell it to Peter’s crew (Kevin Hefferman, Allen Covert, Ernest Borgnine, Ashley Scott, Peter Dante, Jonah Hill, and Justin Long), but that is until Peter’s arch-enemy and host of another animal show Pierson (Harry Hamlin) buys it off first. It’s up to Peter and his crew to get to Bigfoot before Pierson does.

One of the best parts about Strange Wilderness is just how random it is. Last year, I gave Hot Rod three and a half asterisks out of four because I loved the random humor. The only difference here is that Strange Wilderness isn’t as silly when it acts random, but it becomes more meaningful when it does. One of the main scenes in Hot Rod is when Andy Samberg’s character crashes into a moving van. Sure, it’s funny, but never once do you say, “That must have hurt.” Steve Zahn gets his dick bit by a turkey halfway through the movie, and Christ, you should have seen MY reaction.

No matter how much hatred you have against me, I just have to say that I laughed and enjoyed myself. It made my ass happy, and it was much better than that piece of shit Meet the Spartans that I had the balls to see (but NOT pay for… I would have rather paid for my ass hairs to be plucked off one-by-one by Hillary Clinton). I was the only one laughing in a theater filled with people older than me, and it felt good. One of my favorite gags in the film was the scene between Steve Zahn, Allen Covert, and two Mexican guys who kept beeping their car horn whenever they tried to film. I won’t spoil it for you all, but I don’t think I have laughed so hard since that naked wrestling match in Borat.

The film is directed and written by Fred Wolf, who also wrote another guilty pleasure of mine (Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star). Say whatever you want about the weak script, but I laughed at the jokes. It has the feel of Grandma’s Boy within the script.

Okay, sure, so there is Steve Zahn, Allen Covert, Jonah Hill, and Kevin Hefferman, and they all did a great and funny job (coming from a guy who hated everything Zahn did after Daddy Day Care, of course). But I do have to make notice to one particular actor before I finish up the review. Back when I listed my least favorite movie of 2007 (Alvin and the Chipmunks), I wrote, “While the Alvin that I knew was fun and adventurous, this Alvin is boring, whiney, and completely pathetic. But if Alvin was supposed to be like this, I guess Justin Long was just perfect for the role.” And it was true, but now I got to apologize to Long for cleaning up his act. If I wasn’t so afraid of you guys tying me down to a board and play waterboarding with me, I would have said that his character was the best stoner since the duo of Cheech and Chong.

But hey, it’s kind of like what The Dude said…

“Well, you know, that’s like, your opinion, man.”

**** out of ****