Love him but, totally mailed this in

I have loved pretty much everything from Adam Carolla since I first started listening to him on Loveline in 1999. This not so much.

I think between his podcasts, book, Paul Newman documentary, live shows, TV show, family, racing cars, and probably other crap I can't think of or don't know he let this one remain on the back burner from start to finish.

While it was being made, listening to his podcasts I actually got worried because the way he talked about it, like it was something in the way that he was just going to knock out, led me to believe his heart wasn't in it. In fact hearing him talk about it got me thinking he was going to mail in everything he does from now on because he has the money and doesn't give a sh--.

But from all I've heard about the Paul Newman documentary, that was his passion. He worked for that one. And everyone loves that movie.

He passes off the lukewarm reviews to this as haters hating, or not everyone's cup of tea. Bullsh--. This is my cup of tea. This movie had a lot of potential. As it is, it had some laughs. It had a sweet story. It just seemed like Carolla was annoyed he was there in virtually every scene. I could see him checking his watch in his body language.

My favorite scene was right near the end when Howie Mandel tells Adam to dance for him. Carolla's entertaining on the spot improv was exactly the kind of fast witty and funny kind of speech I love about Carolla. It was such a glaring contrast to the rest of his performance in the film.

It seems poetic that it is only when compelled to do so that he puts on a great performance at the end, while the rest of the movie he's so disinterested in the role that I don't even buy that the character is tired of being on the road. It all comes together so beautifully when he chooses to quit the business altogether at the end of the film, fitting that he was quitting the film at the same time, rather than performing to expectations as Howie would have him.



An example of what I think could have been much better is establishing intro to the film.

In an effort to not be redundant, to make for time, to make for story, and to have smooth modern editing, the initial part of the film where we are supposed to see the repetition and dreary of road life isn't nearly long and repetitious enough. I think in the case of the film, it would have made a better impact emotionally, and plot-wise if we saw a lot more of the road life, I've seen it done better before. You show the guy telling the same joke to 15 different backgrounds. You show him seem to throw out a witty interjection or comeback or tangent that seems off the cuff, and then see it 12 more times. Give us a few looonnnggg pauses where he's doing nothing but wasting away hours in empty rooms. It can be done. Family Guy does it all the time just for fun. Show the seasons pass, show him missing every Thanksgiving. Show the family he left behind eating alone. Then you begin to feel it. As is, it looks like he went on one short country tour and hasn't stopped bitching since. Everything looks so comfortable and easy, and yet that is supposed to be the horrible part of life?

Another issue is what Adam has described often, and he attempted to portray in the film as the "fall". It was the premise of the movie to begin with, and it was such a big emotional part of why being on the road was supposed to be so terrible. Yet all we get in the film is a few seconds of the Bro Show or whatever they called it. That's not enough. Show him as a celebrity, show him on his way up. Show his family intact, show him being adored, going to big events, getting better paychecks, THEN hit us with the dreary monotonous road life.

They should have gutted 20 minutes from the gooey boring core of the film and stuffed all this up front. Give the whole film a rollercoaster arc where we see the fast rise, the fast fall, then the long truly torturous climb he's making as a touring comedian, just sort of barely hanging on to his career and grasping desperately to go back up. And then right at the end it can ramp up quickly, and then boom he's off the ride and quitting. Would have been far more entertaining then cramming all the backstory and emotional turmoil into the intro credits, then 85 minutes of bitching about something that seems alright, and then an inexplicable let down ending.