Nature Calls (2012)
BOMB (out of 4)
Incredibly awful comedy has Boy Scout leader Randy (Patton Oswalt) kidnapping his brother's (Johnny Knoxville) adopted son and friends and taking them into the woods for a camping trip. Yes, that's pretty much the entire story. I've seen quite a few bad movies in my lifetime but it's pretty clear that it's hard to get a movie made today and get it released to something other than Youtube. I say that because for the life of me I can't see how this thing got financing and I really can't understand why some studio would actually buy it, try to release it and make money off of it. This here is without question one of the worst and most pathetic comedies I've seen in a very long time and it's really too bad considering the talented cast. I really couldn't understand where any of the comedy was supposed to be coming from because the screenplay doesn't have anything remotely funny or even that interesting. Yes, I get it, the Boy Scouts are falling apart and this Randy is just holding onto the past. That's fine but is this supposed to be funny? Is it funny seeing boys pee in the woods? Is it funny seeing the adopted son is from Africa? Is is supposed to be funny that the brother gets set on fire? The entire movie is just one big flop after another with bad jokes, a boring story and not a single interesting thing going on. Oswalt pretty much sleepwalks through the role and this is certainly the worst I've seen from him. Knoxville is just more annoying than anything else and Maura Tierney is just wasted. The late, great Patrice O'Neal is the only bit of energy but sadly he's not in the film enough to make it better. NATURE CALLS is a complete misfire that's certainly one of the worst films of the year.
