Rating: R | Runtime: 98 minutes
Release Date: August 28th, 2026 (USA)
Studio: Independent Film Company
Director(s): Macon Blair
Writer(s): Macon Blair / Macon Blair & Alex Orr (story)

Which time?

When Davis (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) is forced to relinquish the keys to the church van after chaperoning a group of teens to see more of Willem Dafoe than they bargained for and Mark (Dave Franco) is finally laid off from a job he probably should have been fired from months ago, fate sets them on a collision course in Macon Blair’s (co-conceived by Alex Orr) Idiots (formerly known as Shitheads). Their task upon meeting: escort a wealthy teen heir to rehab.

Sparked by Orr’s suggestion to write a script on the controversial topic of “teen transportation,” Blair fashions a buddy road trip comedy with three men who are anything but buddies. The well-meaning yet devoid of sound judgement Davis is just trying to keep the one job he has left when Ms. Dorindo (Grace Junot) sticks him with Mark’s drug-addled boor of a screw-up simply because the latter has a car. They might not like each other, but they’re contractually bound.

That contract states that they are now the temporary legal guardians of one Sheridan Kimberly (Mason Thames)—a troubled rich kid they presume is being sent away to kick a narcotics habit. Neither looks into who he is or what he’s done because Davis genuinely believes he’s acting as God’s shepherd to heal a troubled soul and Mark is only interested in joking that none of his friends ever had to go to rehab despite doing a lot worse when they were his age.

The Kimberly family attorney (Lee Eddy) who all but breathes a sigh of relief upon transferring guardianship to these obviously under-qualified escorts warns them to be careful, but we sometimes must experience the pain before we can learn to expect it. And these two men are in for a world of hurt once Sheridan susses out a series of schemes with which to incapacitate both with ease. This isn’t a survival technique for the teen, though. It’s a game.

While the resulting chaos can be entertaining (more so due to the suspense, dark undercurrent of violence, and potential for two helpless rubes finding the mettle to save the day than its broad cringe comedy), it unfolds in an often detached and episodic way. Act one has the introductions. Act two brings along a stripper (Kiernan Shipka with an unnecessary accent) for a revenge caper. Act three wields a deranged gang of amateurs to repeat the same.

Rather than craft a narrative that weaves these plots together, Blair takes them one at a time to find a resolution before igniting the next drama. This choice leads to some tedium as we’re stuck in each subplot too long knowing Davis and Mark will luck their way out for no other reason than to move onto the next set-piece. Thankfully, some bright spots do save us from the monotony (Daniel Kelly’s dryly stoic desk clerk is fantastic).

Sure, that aforementioned gang is fun too considering Peter Dinklage, Nicholas Braun, and Melanie Loren are enthusiastically turning up the weird and goofy dial, but things get muddied once we’re also supposed to fear them. That’s not a tough sell for Davis and Mark considering their ineptitude and cowardice often has them pleading for their lives on reflex, but it is for Sheridan. Yes, this is the one time he isn’t in control. But you don’t just turn psychopathic apathy off.

I was therefore forced to wonder what the goal was a few times during the film. Was Idiots supposed to be a stupid comedy they decided to write action into? Or was it a thriller they shoved laughs into? We’re always stuck in the middle tonally, unsure whether to take anything seriously despite it definitely seeming like their goal. While this fact leaves the whole too messy for me to ever want to watch it again, I don’t necessarily regret this initial look.

Franco is mostly doing his usual douchebag schtick (think “The After Party” with a side of unearned sympathy that the character seems hellbent to sabotage himself). Jackson is pretty effective as the gullible straight man doing his best to keep cool in increasingly terrible situations. And Thames steals the show with a devilish grin whenever his Sheridan is able to revel in his drivers’ too-late realizations that he’s ruined their lives yet again.

It’s enough to maintain investment from one skit to the next even if I grew listless multiple times along the journey. Blair and company try to bring out some social commentary insofar as the capitalistic bounty hunting racket that is “teen transport” and the immorality of wealth as a destroyer of human empathy, but it’s tough to champion either angle when there’s no character growth in the process. It’s all nihilism as entertainment, for better and worse.

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O’Shea Jackson Jr., Dave Franco, and Mason Thames in Macon Blair’s IDIOTS. Courtesy of Independent Film Company. An Independent Film Company Release.