Years ago I worked with this guy who’d made a short film in college about these old dudes who built boats in the Carolinas. Even though I only watched this short doc once I will forever remember a line one of the guys said. “There are three products that you can buy that do what they’re made to do. Geritol, STP, and Camel non-filter cigarettes.”

MacGruger is a film that aspires towards that statement. In other words this genre film, parody spoof of spy thriller plus a SNL skit spin-off film (Lorne Michaels gets a producer credit and a million dollars), does exactly what it’s supposed to do. MacGruber provides perverse R-rated laughs all revolving around butt humor.

We’ve got jokes about going to the bathroom; jokes that involve vegetables being inserted into the anal cavity (this film has to have had the highest budget for celery in cinema history); as well as a running gag about Macgruber making spazz faces while fucking. Think Lochlan Monroe’s line from Office Space about the “O-face.”

MacGruber stars Will Forte, Ryan Phillippe and Kristen Wiig and none of them have ever reached so low in their careers. And yet, there are moments in this film that would be included in a highlights reel of said careers. There’s nothing here that you will remember in a month but still you’d be a damn fool to rent this on DVD and watch with arch eyebrows rather that just see it now in a theater.

- Michael Bergeron