Deliverance meets The Hangover in this wacky-but-slapdash horror-comedy from Kazakhstan. It’s juvenile, crass and gross-out, with funny bits depressingly few and far between. Daniar Alshinov is Dastan, a man who is under the cosh of his pregnant wife Zhanna (Asel Kaliyeva); her only personality trait is that she’s a nagging ballbreaker. Though to be fair, most of the characters here feel like one-dimensional stereotypes.
As a last hurrah before the birth of the baby, Dastan has arranged to go fishing with two old buddies. One of them, Arman (Azamat Marklenov) owns an online sex toy business, so arrives with a camper van full of cheapo factory seconds blow-up dolls. Things get steadily more unhilarious from there. An excruciating set piece on the road involves one of the trio pissing in bottle and throwing it out the window; only the window is shut. More comedy mishap ensues on the dinghy, when a fishing hook catches Arman in the ear, ripping clean through the ear lobe (weirdly, with very little blood).
Things get worse, sub-Fargo style, when the three men witness a group of clownish mobsters accidentally shooting a man in the face. The mean guys give chase. But wouldn’t you know, an even meaner guy, a one-eyed serial killer, arrives on the scene. He’s the strong, silent survivalist type, who can rip a man’s jaw apart with his bare hands.
Admittedly, I’m not the target audience for this brand of infantile humour. But I’m not sure even a film aimed at six-year-olds could get away with a gag involving a man hiding behind a door from a murderer and almost giving himself away by nervously farting. In the absence of actual jokes, the actors seem to have been directed to yell lines at each other, as if that will make them funny. Take Paracetamol, not popcorn.
• Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It is released on 21 February on digital platforms.
