Cinematic Releases: Doobious Sources (2016) - Reviewed







Stoner comedies are as old as comedy itself and have been the focal point of some of the funniest comedies in the history of film, some wittier and more inventive than others.  But with every successful comedy concerning the exploits of bumbling potheads on the run from whatever entanglements they’re in, Pineapple Express being one of the most polished in recent memory, there are ones like the homemade student effort Doobious Sources that simply fumble the ball.  Try as hard as this one may, I sat through this amateurish backyard stoner caper comedy about two video journalists/pot advocates on the run from an angry source out for revenge bored and checking my watch repeatedly as the running time seemed to slow to a tedious crawl.

Much like Star Leaf, another micro-budget indie effort that thinks the mere act of puffing and passing is tantamount to comedy, I’m sorry to say Doobious Sources is dead on arrival.  I’ll admit the technical merits of this homegrown effort succeed Star Leaf, but as a film it was oddly even more of a chore to sit through.  Moreover, both Star Leaf and Doobious Sources aren’t so much interested in functioning as standalone comedies as they are in heaping more fuel on the fire pushing for the legalization of marijuana.  Whatever your stance on the weed issue which is still a hot topic of American politics and drug laws are shouldn’t matter to whether Doobious Sources at the end of the day still works as a movie or not.

At the risk of sounding like a social justice warrior, Doobious Sources also has an oddly chauvinistic attitude towards the one or two women who show up in this thing.  Where one unnamed female character only serves to cause a rift between the two stoner videographers, the only other one of note appears to be a hooker passing through in one of their “news reports” as the subtitle, I kid you not, ‘Random Moisty’ appears onscreen.  Chauvinism in comedy, particularly bro-comedies, is tricky business in that it can either lean towards tongue-in-cheek snickering or just come off as offensive without being funny.  In the case of Doobious Sources, a film that only made yours truly chuckle maybe once, it’s fair to say the makers of this could use some more classes in the art of comedy.


Gonna smoke myself back to the stoned age. 



To be fair the cast of this thing really is trying with the two bumbling stoned reporters played by Jeff Lorch and Jason Weissbrod giving their all, which might be part of the problem.  Too much of the time, the cast overplays their lines which comes across as either trying too hard or misdirected.  Given the track record of the cast, notably veteran actor Joe Cortese as the irate victim of yellow journalism out for sweet revenge, I’m willing to bet writer-director Clif Lord whose previous credits include being an assistant production accountant on 3 Ninjas Kick Back isn’t up to the task of directing a film.  In the pantheon of stoner comedies throughout the last several decades, Doobious Sources is more bottom feeder fodder which is best left on the shelf the next time you take a stroll through Family Video.  


Score:

- Andrew Kotwicki