Most of the time, it is viewed as good practice to not make effusive, declarative statements about an artist or their work that give it any sense of finality, since such proclamations rarely tend to age all that well, and can be viewed as hyperbole formed in the spur of the moment, something everyone one of us has been guilty of doing at some point. However, there are few opinions in which I am more secure than my undying belief that Connor O’Malley is one of the most revolutionary comedic minds working in contemporary media, and the very definition of a voice of his generation. Regardless of the medium, he has consistently proven to be an absolute genius, shaking the very foundation of an industry that was not prepared for his unique vision but is gradually becoming more aware of it as time progresses and he becomes more prominent. He is the kind of artist who will never have a singular magnum opus as a result of his refusal to rest on his laurels since he comes from a generation of comedians who are constantly reinventing the form and therefore refuse to limit themselves to a particular style – but one of his most recent offerings is perhaps his greatest work yet, coming in the form of Rap World, his feature-length directorial debut that is designed to be a mockumentary based around a group of young men growing bored of their suburban ennui, and setting out to record an album. This film is intended to be the documenting of that process, following them throughout a couple of nights as they drink and smoke, as well as meander around their working-class neighbourhood, and occasionally do something vaguely resembling recording music, which they all believe positions them at the precipice of greatness, when in reality they are about as inept and hopeless as they come, leading to a series of misadventures that are as hilarious as they are bizarre. O’Malley once again masters the art of multimedia storytelling, crafting a compelling and engaging comedy about everyday life and its many peculiarities that provoke and entertain in equal measure.

There is something about O’Malley’s screen presence that feels so bespoke – his style of acting is somehow simultaneously charming and grotesque, especially since he has built a career out of playing these characters who oscillate between over-confident and awkward, being too blissfully unaware of the deranged personality traits that they don’t realize that they are not nearly as charismatic as he would hope. Rap World features another delightfully deranged creation, this time coming in the form of Matt Lohan, a lovable slacker who believes he can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any of the great rappers that have come before him, even going so far as to boast about his supposed talents as a performer, when in reality he is about as gifted as he is intelligent (which is to say, not at all), but which only makes him more of a fascinating character. O’Malley tends to create these off-the-wall eccentrics who tend to lack any sense of self-awareness, and his ability to commit wholeheartedly to playing them as if they were real people. There is not an ounce of artifice in this performance – he inhabits the skin of Matt with such vigour and dedication, that we forget that we are watching an actor. The same goes for every actor in the film – Rap World was conceived in conjunction with Jack Bensinger and Eric Rahill, both of whom play the other two major roles in the film, and much like O’Malley, they entirely immerse themselves in these characters. The entire supporting cast, which is presumably plucked from the writers’ environment, such as their family, friends and close community, is wonderful, particularly when it comes to handling the bizarre nature of the material. It is an absolute marvel that O’Malley managed to recruit so many non-professional actors who didn’t once come across as inauthentic or stilted, but instead fully realistic, one of the countless traits that makes Rap World such an extraordinary achievement in every aspect.

The musical mockumentary is a genre that is peculiar in the fact that everyone generally agrees that it reached its peak right at the very start, with This Is Spinal Tap almost universally being considered the pioneering work, as well as the one that best defines this style of filmmaking, to the point where everything that has come since has essentially been standing in its shadow, chasing after it to replicate even an iota of its brilliance. Some wonderful works have been produced in the last forty years that pay sufficient tribute but don’t quite hit the mark in the way that would make them even vaguely comparable to Rob Reiner’s masterpiece. Oddly enough, all it took was a trio of deranged young comedians and a camcorder to make what is perhaps the closest we are going to get to the madcap brilliance of that film, with Rap World being the most likely successor to the outrageous brilliance that has inspired so many comedians for decades. The reasoning behind such a proclamation has very little to do with the quality – this film is gaudy, badly edited and jarring at the best of times – but rather the sheer ambition that went into creating a new language of comedy. This is a film in which the humour is not found in the punchlines, the delivery or the aftermath. Instead, the comedy is formed in the small, inconsequential moments that simply should not be funny, but yet through simply being arranged in such a way that takes us by surprise, comes across as extraordinarily funny and unquestionably hilarious. Rap World is a film about the humour of everyday life – the jokes are neither witty nor well-crafted, and are instead awkward and strange, but emerge from a very authentic place, one that is almost poetic in how they’re delivered. Something as simple as ordering food or delivering a eulogy is made outrageously funny simply because of how these elements function in the broader picture of the film, creating something so thoroughly engaging, that we struggle to be anything other than entirely taken by this incredibly strange film.

Despite its loose-form, almost nonsensical structure, Rap World is a surprisingly daring film, acting as quite poignant existential odyssey into the minds of its characters at a particular time and place. This is actually where we find a lot of value in the film, which is as much a bizarre mockumentary about the music industry as it is a story about American life in 2009, serving as a period piece of an era we can all recall to some degree, but yet which still like such a distant memory. The level of detail present in this film is unmatched – everything from the clothing to the way the homes are designed, to the music the characters listen to and the games they play, to even the most inconsequential references, make it feel like we have stumbled upon a lost home video from fifteen years ago, launching us into the past in a way that is both delightfully irreverent and frankly quite uncomfortable. There are certainly some serious underpinnings to this film, whether intentional or not – these are lovable characters who attempt to hide their melancholy by creating these larger-than-life personas, knowing that they are not ever going to achieve the greatness that they seem to aspire towards, but yet are happy to have the distraction, even if it means they are wasting the time they could be used to be more productive. There is a sense of sadness lingering throughout this film, which is only strengthened by the comedy, which creates a tragicomic account of a trio of friends trying to make their way through the early years of the 2000s, not realizing that these are indeed the best days of their lives, something that they all suspect but are not ready to admit. It’s a beautiful portrait of terminal mediocrity, as seen through the perspective of some genuinely deranged characters who appear to be relatively conventional, but are prophetic voices of their generation, at least in terms of what they represent.

By this point, O’Malley is prominent enough to be recognizable, but yet still carries some degree of mystique, making him more of a cult figure. I suspect this won’t last very long, especially as audiences become more aware of his work and begin to recognize his talents, actually seeking his projects out. This likely means that he will lose the ability to convincingly create these works that are driven by the feeling of authenticity (where those who aren’t familiar with him may think they have stumbled upon something real), but in favour of giving his gifts a much larger platform, a sacrifice every one of his devotees feels is only appropriate for such a singular voice in contemporary media. There is an argument to be made that Rap World could be one of the great films on the subject of the American Dream since it contains all the necessary elements: a group of ambitious young people who aspire to achieve greatness by any means necessary, and who work laboriously to achieve what they believe they deserve, while not realizing the challenges that lay ahead of them, which prove to be truly intimidating, but never to the point of dissuading them from pursuing their dreams. O’Malley may not have intended this to be the ultimate message of Rap World, but like all of his work, he doesn’t seem to want to assert definitive authorship on it and instead passes it over to the viewer to glean whatever meaning we want from the material, which leads to quite a compelling experience. Running at less than an hour in length, and freely available, this film is a masterpiece – hilarious beyond any description, but also deeply meaningful and earnest in its vision, it achieves something truly incredible, being a well-crafted, captivating comedy that revolutionizes the medium in ways that we cannot fathom, and will likely only see the influence of in coming years once its impact becomes almost impossible to overlook.