Let’s face it, no one cares about Greg Sestero. He isn’t a terrible actor I’d say, just a very bland one. People aren’t clambering over one another to see a film with Greg in it. No, we are here to see Tommy Wiseau. And oh man is he fucking weird.
Tommy Wiseau doesn’t act. He’s just himself, unfortunately himself happens to be a fucking weirdo. I feel like I’m repeating myself here, but I need you to understand just how fucking weird this guy is. It’s like he has never interacted with another human being in his life. The whole idea of talking to people seems like such a foreign concept to him, that I’m pretty sure he’s some kind of space alien sent to earth for the main reason his own home planet got tired of him and wanted to pan him off on us.
What do I even call this movie? Is it Best Friends? Or is it Best Fiends?
One thing I wasn’t expecting was there to be two parts of this. This was only part one because they couldn’t cut together a full cohesive film otherwise. This first “volume” could easily have been edited down to 40 minutes, as this is packed full of nonsense. Nonsense that could have easily been left on the cutting room floor.
So what is Best Friends? Well, have you seen The Disaster Artist? Well Best Friends is basically that. They pretty much remade The Disaster Artist but with some fictional elements added to it as to not get sued. Though The Disaster Artist was based on Greg’s own book so…
I think Greg only has one story to tell and that’s showcasing the weird and slightly homoerotic relationship he has with Tommy Wiseau. I’m not sure what kind of relationship these two have, all I know is it most likely isn’t the healthiest as like I keep mentioning, Tommy Wiseau is a fucking weirdo!
Does Tommy Wiseau actually run an autopsy business in LA? Maybe. Did he really make all his money from collecting gold teeth from cadavers? It’s possible. I mean, it would explain a lot about where Tommy Wiseau got the millions to fund The Room. He dipped into his creepy cadaver gold teeth fund.
It might also explain why he doesn’t like talking about what he does for a living. It might also explain why he’s so damn strange and unable to communicate with people, because he spends his time with dead folks on a slab.
I’m pretty sure everything in the film belonged somehow to Tommy Wiseau. His wardrobe is absolutely his own. And if I had to guess, I’d say so are the cars he drives and the buildings they shoot in. One of which is a morgue. And it didn’t seem like the kind of place a location scout just happen to find, this seemed like they needed a morgue for the character and Tommy Wiseau just happened to have one in his basement.
Greg plays Jon, a homeless man who seems to have been beaten up. His face is bruised and cut, not to mention the giant blood stain on the side of his shirt. It’s never explained how he got in this state, but from what I read about volume 2, it seems Jon tried jumping off a bridge.
Why we needed another film to explain that, I have no idea.
There are a few flashbacks of some people messing with Jon, and I just assumed that was how he got attacked. But apparently he jumped off a bridge. Which might explain why he’s constantly reminiscing under bridges and on bridges.
Now how much do you want to bet in volume 2 it is revealed that Jon is dead and this is either hell or purgatory? I tried to think what the hackiest thing they could come up with would be and that has to be it. Hopefully I’m wrong, and Greg isn’t as unoriginal as I think he is.
I do slightly like the film’s concept of them getting into the business of selling gold teeth. So maybe I should give Greg the benefit of doubt. The Disaster Artist is a best seller and was made into a movie after all.
Enough about Greg’s character, let’s talk about the man of the hour, Tommy Wiseau.
Tommy plays Harvey, a mortician. He’s a giant bag of weird. Again, Tommy isn’t playing a character as much as he’s just being himself who they just happen to call Harvey.
Several times Harvey says to Jon, look at you, you look like some kind of homeless person. But Harvey knows he is homeless, or at least should know. At first I thought he was making a joke. And it got a slight laugh out of me. Then he keeps saying it like he doesn’t realize Jon is homeless.
He says he spotted him several time around the city hanging out around bridges and holding up signs asking for money, I guess Harvey didn’t put it together.
Harvey calls Jon over and has him help lift a coffin. He then introduces Jon to his lab where he performs autopsies. Harvey doesn’t just like cutting them open but also making life-like masks for the cadavers to wear if the face and body has been too horrifically mangled.
Like this character needed any more help being super creepy.
I can say this about Tommy Wiseau’s performance in this, he was slightly less terrible than I was expecting him to be. A lot has to do with the fact the character he is portraying isn’t meant to be this good guy family man with a bunch of friends like in The Room. Here he’s playing a creepy mortician and it slightly works for him as like I stated earlier, he is fucking creepy.
Whenever he talks to someone in this, he’s always extremely hostile. It comes out of nowhere and I have no idea the reason for it. When Jon introduces Harvey to his new girlfriend it felt like an unscripted moment, like this was Tommy jealously meeting Greg’s girlfriend and instantly getting weird and hostile towards her.
It’s one of the strangest scenes in the movie and I can’t really explain the motivation behind it. I guess to later create a rift between the two friends… but boy is it cringy.
Okay, so “friends”. The whole concept of these two characters becoming friends… I didn’t buy it. I don’t buy the fact that anyone could be friends with not only Tommy but the character he’s playing.
Harvey is just too weird and unlikable as a person, so the connection I guess we are meant to feel between these two is nonexistent.
Harvey collects the gold teeth of the cadavers, usually you throw this stuff out, but Harvey likes to keep them. But he’s been collecting them for many years, now having a considerable stockpile of “mouth stuff” as it’s labeled.
Jon sees this and robs Harvey blind, making a nice profit. But I guess we are led to believe these two develop a friendship, giving Jon doubts about stealing from Harvey. After their weird and sudden trip to Las Vegas, Jon decides to come clean and bring Harvey in on the gold teeth business.
Business seems to be good, but Harvey still doesn’t trust Jon and demands they keep the money they make in this safe shaped like an ATM. Or maybe it was an ATM, I’ve never seen inside one so who knows. And yes, I’m 100% sure that was Tommy’s actual safe he uses in real life.
Jon quickly gets tired of them sitting on all this cash as he is still homeless, claiming to have at least 2 million dollars stored in the safe he can’t touch. The same can’t be said about Harvey as he is out buying new cars and paying off his debts.
Jon and his girlfriend Traci come up with a plan to steal the cash. They trick Harvey into believing his favorite band The Rolling Stones are playing a show in Vegas and Jon got him tickets for his birthday.
The plan after getting him in the car is to steal the keys for the safe and ditch him along the way. As they are driving to Vegas, Harvey wants to stop and stretch his legs. The perfect time to steal the keys, but Harvey seems stranger than usual, it’s hard to tell with him.
Jon goes to see what the matter is and the two fight, resulting in Harvey getting shoved off the ledge of a mountain cliff to the ocean below.
That’s when the film gets weird and student art filmy. I honestly don’t know what happened after Harvey took the tumble. That’s what volume 2 will resolve I guess.
I really don’t know why this needed to be split up into two films, this isn’t Kill Bill or something.
If I had to rate this… I don’t know. The obvious choice would be to SKIP IT, but the only reason anyone would want to see this in the first place is out of morbid curiosity. You should know what to expect from a film starring the weirdo that made The Room, one of the worst films ever made.
So with all that in mind, maybe this is a RENT IT.
It did seem to feature a bunch of references to The Room. It wasn’t what I thought it might be, just a quick sequel cashing in on what made them popular. You see that with films infamously bad that get sequels. They try to relive the magic but it’s something you can’t easily reproduce. Films like Sharknado, Samurai Cop, Birdemic… all of those films got sequels but were more in on the joke, meaning less interesting and not nearly so bad it’s good. It was just bad.
Neil Breen has now taken over the throne of laughably terrible movie making, leaving guys like Tommy Wiseau to days of old.
That about does it for this review. That is until volume 2 comes out.
Next week however is the start of HORROR MONTH! I’ve been looking forward to this for a while now. Aside from Mandy, I haven’t watched a single horror movie in months. This must be what those nofap weirdos on youtube must go through. I can’t wait to release all this horror movie goodness all over you guys. So be ready for nonstop horror movie reviews. It’s going to be amazing! Or like usual will leave some very disappointed.
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