Movie Reviews

‘Andy Somebody’ review: Action comedy never gets going

Great for fans of body shaming.

April 17, 2023

Andy Somebody starts with two jaded cops on stakeout duty. They make crude comments about each person they see. What starts as mildly amusing soon becomes an unfunny series of fat jokes. The segment sums up the entire film. Kind of funny, but more tiresome than anything else.

Things get off to a slow start. Andy (Jeremy M. Evans) has a job as an accountant for a corrupt plastic surgeon. Andy decides to steal millions from him and flee to Los Angeles. The problem here is twofold. One, despite the high tension situation, everything lacks a sense of urgency. The plot just aimlessly moves forward with seemingly little reason.

The other issue is that aside from being a misogynistic jerk, Shifflett (Jonathan Buckley) never does anything evil. When the main villain’s worst deeds include not tipping a pizza delivery person, there is a problem. Later, Andy does mention Shifflett commits fraud, but it comes off as lazy writing. It feels like the writers forgot to show any evil deeds earlier and just threw in the line. On the plus side, a character mentions to Andy stealing millions of dollars because he hates his job is a little much.

Andy Somebody also suffers from a tonal problem. Ostensibly an action-comedy, it never feels like either. There is a somber feeling that permeates the entire film that prevents the audience from ever fully getting engaged in any of it. It is hard to get invested in a movie when it seems like even the characters in it do not care.

This is probably the weirdest part of the film. It is not that the performances are bad; it is the atmosphere that surrounds Andy Somebody that brings everything down. Lots of things happen, but nothing leaves an impact. This is most evident in a subplot involving Andy’s father that should register in some way, but just feels tacked on.