Chaotic, absurd, and messy – Pizza Movie won’t be for everyone, but it never once hesitates to commit to the bit.
There’s something immediately familiar about Pizza Movie. Within the first ten minutes, it feels like you’ve been transported back to the early 2000s – those scrappy, chaotic stoner comedies that didn’t care how ridiculous they were, as long as they made you laugh.
It doesn’t quite reach the highs of Superbad or Pineapple Express, but it’s very much cut from the same cloth. It initially feels more like an extended YouTube sketch from the era of Smosh and College Humour (God, I feel old)- turns out there’s good reason for that. Directors Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher (better known as BriTANick) got their start making exactly that sort of content, and you can feel that DNA baked into every scene.
That sketch-comedy background is both the film’s biggest strength and its biggest limitation. Pizza Movie is absurd, unapologetically stupid, and completely committed to the bit, and that commitment is exactly why it works. When the jokes land, they really land. When they don’t, the film just barrels forward anyway, hoping the next one will hit harder.
The cast does a lot of the heavy lifting here. Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone have great chemistry, with Giambrone in particular delivering some of the film’s funniest moments. There’s also a standout supporting performance from the RA head (Jack Martin) who plays everything completely straight with an intense, deadpan seriousness that makes the chaos around him even funnier. That all-in energy is a running theme across the film with everyone understanding the assignment.
“It’s not trying to be clever or profound, it’s just trying to be funny”
Structurally, you can feel its sketch origins. Certain segments play like standalone bits stitched together, which works in bursts but starts to wear thin as the film goes on. It does lose a bit of steam towards the final act with momentum dipping and the jokes just not landing as much.
Still, there’s something genuinely refreshing about it. I think we can all agree comedy as a genre has felt a bit lacklustre in recent years, and Pizza Movie is a reminder of a time when films were allowed to be messy, weird, and dumb. It’s not trying to be clever or profound, it’s just trying to be funny.
This is the kind of film that will absolutely hit harder depending on your mood (especially if under a particular substance) – It’s easy to imagine it being a completely different experience in the right setting.
That said, it’s a tough one to recommend across the board. Its humour is very specific, and if you don’t click with its brand of absurdity, you’ll probably find it more irritating than entertaining.
It’s not a must-watch by any means but if you’ve got 90 minutes to spare and you’re in the mood for something chaotic, dumb, and occasionally hilarious, Pizza Movie might just be worth a shot.
It doesn’t always land, but when it does, Pizza Movie is a chaotic reminder of how fun comedies used to be.
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