On the Count of Three, the debut feature film from Jerrod Carmichael, opens with two best friends pointing guns at each other’s head. They pledged to a suicide pact, ready to put them out of their misery on the count of three. It’s an electric and dizzying way to open the film and instantly makes you curious as to what the hell led up to this insane situation.
These friends are Val (Carmichael), who is stuck at a job that he hates and is having relationship troubles that he doesn’t know how to fix. Then there’s Kevin (Christopher Abbott) who is in a mental hospital after trying to kill himself and when Val comes to him ready to quit life, it’s the sort of moment that Kevin has been searching for and is happy that his best friend wants to check out of the misery hotel along with him.
Carmichael isn’t afraid to tackle dark subject matter head on in a darkly comedic way, one that some may not be ready for. This is the sort of movie that includes lines about how quitting is actually awesome and it feels good to stop doing something you hate. Carmichael who handles a screenplay written by Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch, brings ideas and subject matter that are typically danced around or handled with kids gloves, and puts it on screen in a way that is honest, hilarious but also equally heartfelt when it needs to be.
Before they check out they want to pay a visit to an old authority figure (played by Henry Winkler) in their life who treated Kevin wrong as well as Val’s father (J.B. Smoove). They do what any of us would do with a limited amount of time left on this earth and think of some devious plotting to get their revenge or bow out. Things of course don’t go as smoothly as they had planned and what could’ve played out as a predictable final to-do checklist sort of ride turns into something much more wild and free-spirited, zigging where you expect it to zag.
Given, not all of the hi-jinx work and it feels like the momentum does sort of falter a bit at the end. The relationship between Val and his girlfriend (Tiffany Haddish) isn’t fleshed out enough to resonate deeper, feeling like an afterthought compared to the boys’ relationship. But the chaotic hours spent between these two friends provide an enormous amount of levity and a surprising amount of depths and philosophical realizations on life and the meaning of our time on this earth.
Christopher Abbott has been low-key one of the best actors ever since his now-understandable departure from HBO’s Girls. While most of the roles to date have been of the more serious dramatic fare, he gets to show his comedic range in a broad fashion that still leaves plenty of room for him to deliver plenty of pathos. Carmichael also has his time to shine but he is more so the anchor of the film allowing Abbott with plenty of room to do his thing. If that means rocking out to Papa Roach while drunkenly driving a car, then so be it. It seems like it’s only a matter of time before he’s unlocked further in a role that nets him an Oscar nomination.
On the Count of Three is a film that constantly surprises and pushes your expectations, providing plenty of laughs, along with fully realized moments about friendship, love, depression, and life at large. While it has aspects of films that you may have seen before, it marches very much to the beat of its own drum.
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