No matter your profession, there will be good days and bad days, with the challenge being to find the balance between them. In the case of the protagonists of Idiots, this seems to be a regular occurrence, causing them to wonder if they are perhaps the problem. The third film written and directed by the terrific Macon Blair, Idiots follows Davis Hench, a well-meaning young man who always seems to find himself in precarious situations, made worse by his tendency to always make fatal errors without realising it. With one job gone, he now has to depend on his part-time work for a company that specialises in transporting juvenile delinquents to their respective facilities. His first client turns out to be Sheridan Kimberley, the wealthy son of a local businessman who may seem like a relatively ordinary rebellious teenager on the surface, but who turns out to be one of the most dangerous people in the region, currently charged with the attempted murder of a homeless man. Davis has his work cut out for him, which is why the decision to pair him with Mark Southard, a loose cannon who has also recently lost his job, is all the more frustrating. Together, they have a goal and a destination, but a series of incidents derail their plans and put not only their job in jeopardy, but their safety as a whole. An irreverent and darkly comedic thriller that is as subversive as it is wholeheartedly entertaining, Idiots is a peculiar little film, albeit one that knows exactly how to pique our curiosity, taking us on an enthralling journey into a few days in the lives of an unconventional duo who are forced to undertake a nearly impossible assignment, and find themselves in a series of unfortunate situations that they inevitably manage to escape, by hook or by crook, proving that no one manages to be quite as resourceful as an idiot in a crisis – although the very title is earned by the fact that they got themselves there in the first place.

The thematic core of Idiots can be summarised by a single sentence: what if the two most incompatible people (who are hopelessly incompetent for very different reasons) are handed temporary custody of someone who will do absolutely anything to ensure that he doesn’t pay the consequences, even if it means getting them all into an even bigger mess than the one in which they initially found themselves. The film is a fascinating character study in which we’re introduced to a trio of very peculiar young men, all of whom have to move from one location to the next while stirring as little trouble or controversy as possible, which proves to be a fruitless endeavour, since there is nothing quite as terrifying as a wealthy teenager with destructive urges, and who has absolutely nothing to lose and a fortune to burn, especially when the two men under whose care he is temporarily placed make it quite clear that they are hopelessly pathetic at functioning as members of society, let alone being given such an intimidating task. This is a premise that Blair uses as the foundation for a bitingly funny satire that may not intentionally portray itself as a daring and provocative exploration of contemporary masculinity, but it certainly does align with conversations being had on the topic, specifically in an era where young people are given carte blanche to be as reckless as they want, granted all their misdeeds occur in front of a camera and are posted on social media sites, since these are places that not only allow for blatant acts of delinquency, but actively reward those who have the cultural cachet needed to succeed on these platforms. This is only one small aspect of a film that casts a surprisingly wide thematic net, and while it may not always be as consistent in how it explores some themes over the others, it still finds the time to comment on a number of fascinating ideas, each one increasingly more resonant than the last.

Idiots is a film in which absolutely every character is not only a thinly-constructed archetype, but also deeply and profoundly unlikable – or at least that is how it was written, since looking at the characters divorced from the performances, it is certainly clear that there was very little work done to make any of these people anything less than borderline despicable, which seems to be the entire purpose of the film, and the primary reason it succeeds so exceptionally well. The two primary leads are O’Shea Jackson Jr. and Dave Franco, a pair of very different performers who have their own unique gifts, but somehow manage to bring out the best in one another, proving to have exceptional chemistry despite the story essentially being built around these characters being pitted against one another while trying to escape increasingly absurd scenarios. It helps that both actors are entirely committed to the wacky premise of the film, since without their firm dedication to doing exactly what Blair needed from them, the story would not have worked nearly as well as it did, proving that some of the best performances come from those who are willing to put themselves in strange positions to elicit a laugh or move the story forward. The third primary character, and probably the best performance in the film, arrives in the form of Mason Thames, who has steadily been growing in popularity, rising to become one of the most sought-after young actors working today, and someone who is most certainly going to be a major force in the industry in the near future. Unlike some of his other work, where he usually plays more lovable characters, Thames is an absolute nightmare as the film’s primary villain, a young man who will do anything to get his way, regardless of the consequences. Thames is entirely willing to play Sheridan as a snarling, Machiavellian imp, to the point where he eventually starts to act less human, taking on more animalistic qualities as he grows more deranged. It’s a tremendous performance that would’ve been unwieldy in the hands of another actor, but Thames (as well as Franco and Jackson) is fully committed to the madness of this premise, taking it in some surprising but compelling directions.

Something that sets Idiots apart from any other comedy film about a dysfunctional duo having to accomplish a seemingly impossible task is its tone. The story starts out as a relatively conventional black comedy about two idiotic individuals who find themselves in the custody of perhaps the most psychotic teenager in the country, but it eventually turns into one of the most bleak and unsettling depictions of contemporary America that we’ve seen in quite some time. It’s actually staggering how dark Blair is willing to make this film – perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising considering he is the person who helmed the nihilistic masterpiece I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore or whose passion project was the long-gestating reboot of The Toxic Avenger, both of which are very ambitious works that lean into the harrowing absurdity of everyday life – but even with this in mind, its fascinating how, when presented with the opportunity to follow the status quo, the director chooses to go in the other direction, leaning into the madness in a way that is nothing if not wholeheartedly admirable. The film moves with such a unique energy that it often comes across as genuinely quite uncomfortable, which is all part of the experience – if we are not feeling the tension to the point of frustration, then the story is not doing what was intended. A lot of this comes from Blair’s tendency to focus on atmosphere as a way to complement the underlying story, which has been a part of his previous two directorial outings as well, in which bleakness intersects with outrageous humour to create a strange and compelling blend of tones that may seem standoffish at first, but have a clear purpose in terms of how they align with the story being told throughout the film. It’s not always particularly obvious what he is aiming to achieve, but there’s something so wonderfully peculiar about what Blair is doing with this film, at least tonally, that draws us in and piques our curiosity.

I have a feeling Idiots is the kind of film that is going to undergo a major reassessment in a few years, and come to be seen as a cult classic, especially as Blair’s profile as a filmmaker continues to rise. It would likely entail a potential director’s cut (particularly one that retains the original title – The Shitheads is a far more evocative title for this film than the relatively non-descript Idiots) that maintains much of the darkness that we can assume was excised from the film to at least allow it to maintain some semblance of logic, rather than just being wall-to-wall absurdity, but this is a film ripe for discovery by those who enjoy more unconventional romps through the inner depths of the human condition, as told by a pair of the most incompetent protagonists we are ever likely to find. This is a wonderfully offbeat comedy that is not afraid to be exceptionally dark, to the point where we actually cannot predict where it is heading, since if there was ever going to be an off-the-wall comedy that was allowed to descend into complete madness and forego a traditional conclusion, it absolutely would’ve been this one, leading us to wonder whether the happy ending (if we can refer to the conclusion as such – there’s a darkness to how Blair ends the film that many may not pick up on) was intentional, or just tacked on to give the audiences a sense of satisfaction, since ending on such a bleak note, as ambitious as it may have been, would’ve made the experience a bit less accessible. Needless to say, Idiots is still a solid film in spite of some minor narrative flaws, primarily because it is the kind of film that knows exactly how to hold our attention, drawing us towards this strange and uncomfortable version of the world in which chaos reigns supreme. It’s not fantastical, but it does have a lingering sense of absurdity that ultimately serves it well and turns it into a far better film than we may have expected based on a cursory glance.