Review: “Friended To Death” Begging Is Not A Good Way To Laughs

 

The influence and power of social media can definitely be a solid premise for at least a decent movie, right? Films like “Catfish” and “We Live In Public” displayed how deceptive of a force this can be,but these were documentaries and the great film “The Social Network” was merely a biopic. So is it time for a comedy to step-forward and provide a clever/layered commentary on an entity that took the world by storm? I’ll make this easy for you, the answer is a simple, No. This film is a paper-thin, and dimly plotted piece of filmmaking that lacks quality jokes, but has a plethora of groans. 

Bike-riding, meter maid,traffic cop, jerk bag Michael Harris (Ryan Hansen) averages 12 Facebook posts a shift. He revels in issuing asinine citations and all the while insults anybody who crosses his path as he delivers a snarky laugh under the cloak of his “pseudo-copstache.” He makes a mockery of his co-workers, boss and pretty much anybody who crosses his path. Naturally, he is fired and aside from his 471 Facebook connections, friendless. He discovers that somebody he thought was his best friend had a party without him he feels dejected and does what any fun-loving sociopath would do, fakes his own death to get attention via Facebook.

Hansen who is known for his role as the aptly named Dick Casablancas from Veronica Mars does laps around the rest of his cast mates. Hansen’s schtick as the dimwitted, obnoxious baffoon isn’t terribly amusing since he has kept it up relatively his entire career,but he does what he can with the terrible material he is given. I mean he is still funny at times by delivering a few lines that evoke some guilty snickers, you know the kind of joke that would cause “Gram Gram” to give you that I’m disappointed look. 

The rest of the cast is left in the dust and are completely void of comedic timing like Shameless’ Zach McGown who plays Michael’s ex-BFF and co-screenwriterIan Michaels is just plain dreadful.

Hopefully the “Friended To Death” marketing team can garner more likes on their Facebook page than the ONE the star-rating this movie deserves. My guess is probably not.