Tour De Pharmacy movie review (2017)

As a sports narrative, Szymanski vaguely follows the bizarre events of this very fake race but lets the comedy be steered by character development and hilarious side observations from talking heads. Like his previous tennis mockumentary "Seven Days in Hell," the taste for straight-up silliness thrives well beyond its initial sport. 

Explaining what is specifically funny about a film like this is like listing off musical notes to describe a melody, but I can say that what the film wants to do it does very well; the revolving door of celebrities playing oddball characters is always a great factor, my biggest laughs coming from the legendary Maya Rudolph and the immaculately droll Nathan Fielder. It’s a surprising ensemble of brief cameos here and there but has the neatness where performances are fleshed out for the time they are needed. There are plenty of other people of note, too, like Jeff Goldblum, Dolph Lundgren, Kevin Bacon, Danny Glover, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and even J.J. Abrams (the latter who can be seen singing the praises of "Juwanna Mann.") The only unamusing talking head? Lance Armstrong, whose appearance as a doping expert is like a teeth-gnashing epilogue for his sleaziness in real-life documentaries like "The Armstrong Lie."

The 39-minute running time is one feature that nags the project, despite the story's intention to be as fleeting as it is goofy. It has such adrenaline that you imagine it could be longer, and the movie doesn't give much to take away aside from memories of laughing. But for a small project that merely wants to be silly, it comes down to speed: a good feature comedy is roughly laugh-a-minute stuff, and this does well with its half-length—a laugh every 30 seconds, often a big one, sounds about accurate. As a piece of entertainment that primarily aims to distract and delight, it’s can’t-pass-up goofiness.