Movie Breakdown: The Oath

Pre-Screening Stance:

Dark comedies are difficult to get right, but Ike Barinholtz (the Neighbors movies, The Mindy Project) and Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip) are two very funny people, so I’m at least cautiously optimistic about The Oath.

Post-Screening Ramble:

Some of The Oath works, some of it doesn’t.  It’s got a good concept – the White House is pushing for citizens to sign a loyalty oath, and as the deadline to do so approaches, it sends everything into a tizzy.  Two people having an especially hard time are Chris (Ike Barinholtz) and his wife Kai (Tiffany Haddish), who suddenly find their already-tumultuous Thanksgiving dinner made much worse by the arrival of two government agents.  Barinholtz is good as the very stubborn Chris, and Haddish is a surprisingly nice fit as the level-headed Kai.  I also found Billy Magnussen to be fantastic as the bizarrely nutty Agent Mason.

The film is all over the place though in regards to its tone, and I think it’s largely because it just tries to do too much.  For every moment that the movie is a straight up comedy, there’s others where it’s a drama or a political satire, and all of the sliding around keeps it from ever quite finding its rhythm or comfort zone.  It also doesn’t really help that The Oath is more manic than smart, which I guess is better for setting up jokes, but all of that yelling and chaos doesn’t do much but stiff arm the more interesting parts of the film.

I wouldn’t recommend paying to see The Oath in a theater, but I do think it’s worth eventually catching.  It has some good laughs in it and is a generally solid little film.  If anything, you can at least expect it to put Ike Barinholtz on your radar as a director.

One Last Thought:

Tiffany Haddish calls someone a “thrash pussy” in this movie and it’s just dumb and tacky enough to be something that I will repeat for the rest of my life.