Mystery Team

Let’s cut the crap: Mystery Team is one heck of a funny movie, case closed.

Mystery Team is a trio of 18 year-old friends (Donald Glover, D.C. Pierson, and Dominic Dierkes…who also make up 3/5ths of the internet sketch comedy group Derrick Comedy) who never quite matured (at least mentally) past the age of about 5 or 6. They formed a neighborhood detective agency (named “Mystery Team”) when they were kids and having been trying to solve big cases ever since. Herein lies the major part of the humor for the movie: 5 year-old boys in 18 year-old bodies, with everyone but themselves aware of the idiocy of the situation. They still think girls are icky, have no clue what a gentlemen’s club really is, and still ride around town on their bikes, despite the fact that at least one of them (Donald Glover’s character) owns a car.

That might seem like a somewhat thin premise to stretch over the length of a full film, but these guys pull it off completely. Of course, it helps that this time around, they actually have a real case to figure out: the murder of two neighborhood girls’ parents. And therein lies the real power of the story and the humor: for every stupid, “guy humor” joke that gets cracked, it’s often coupled with a much darker undercurrent. It’s really quite brilliant and hilarious. Take for instance, the gentlemen’s club gag: the boys get dressed up in top hats and tails in order to get in, only to realize that they’ve stumbled into an incredibly dank and dirty strip club, complete with a stripper who’s still got a visible c-section scar across her stomach. From there, it just gets weirder and more disgusting, but the team never loses their boyish cool.

Things finally start to become unglued, but to go any further would be to ruin the finale of the story. Suffice it to say, fans of smart/dumb/dark/goofy/potty comedy need to check this out. The three leads are awesome together, and the rest of the cast is rounded out by some phenomenal actors/actresses that you’ve probably seen in any number of TV shows or movies: Aubrey Plaza (April on Parks and Recreation), Matt Walsh (Old School, Semi Pro, Human Giant), Kevin Brown (Dot Com on 30 Rock), Ellie Kemper (Erin on The Office), John Lutz (Lutz on 30 Rock), Bobby Moynihan (Saturday Night Live), among others.

Hysterical, off-color, smart, goofy…all of the above and more. This is Mystery Team.