Movie review: Entourage: It’s back, five years too late

The movie version of the TV show about a film star and his childhood friends turns out to be a lightweight commentary on Hollywood that gets by on nudity and celebrity cameos

Entourage

Starring: Jeremy Piven, Adrian Grenier, Kevin Connolly

Directed by: Doug Ellin

Rating: 2 stars out of 5

Running time: 104 minutes

By Jay Stone

It’s set in Hollywood among the beautiful and famous and frequently laid — not to mention the angry, the conniving and the casually sexist — but Entourage is reminiscent of nothing as much as Trailer Park Boys.

On the surface, of course, they have nothing in common: the Canadian show took place among a resolutely broken-down and desperate community whose idea of a good time was hot-wiring a 1983 Chevy or finding a new scheme to sell pot. The crew in Entourage, on the other hand, sails along in a new Cadillac convertible, attends parties populated by topless female models, and finds the conflict in trying to finance a $100-million action film.

But both of them are about the deeper — i.e. shallower — concerns of the young male friends who are trying to make their way in the world armed with nothing but native cunning and an insatiable desire for women. They’re both about bros; their humour comes in the familiar vulgarity of their tastes and their interest derives from the fascinating (the filmmakers hope) texture of their environments.

Both also worked better in the shorter, snappy environs of television, where you could immerse yourself in welfare-funded criminality (or in a trailer park) for an hour or so. Both suffer on the big screen.

The Entourage movie, which has arrived approximately five years after anyone might care, is like binge-watching a season of the old HBO show, but with more breasts. Writer-director Doug Ellin, given the freedom of film, has used it to populate Entourage with a generous array of attractive, half-naked women; it’s some ways, like a Victoria’s Secret travelogue.

The story has also advanced slightly: movie star Vincent Chase (the preposterously good-looking Adrian Grenier) has decided what he really wants to do is direct — hey Vince; I know a lightweight summer comedy that could have used you — and his old gang of childhood friends from Queens are still by his side, helping.

Eric (Kevin Connolly), his agent, has fallen into a cycle of competing girlfriends even as his ex is about to give birth. Turtle (Jerry Ferrara), who has lost weight, is in hot pursuit of a martial arts star (real-life martial arts star Rhonda Rousey). And Johnny (Kevin Dillon), Vince’s goateed and slightly sleazy half-brother, is still trying to ramp up his acting career even though he looks as if he might be more at home in — oopsy daisy — the Trailer Park Boys.

Meanwhile, Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven), Vince’s old agent, has become head of the studio (“I’m back to be king of Hollywood,” as he modestly puts it) and is financing Vince’s movie. It’s called Hyde, and is an adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson story, but set in the world of nightclubs. It looks like what might happen if the Wachowski siblings were asked to remake Saturday Night Fever.

There are several problems in everyone’s life — Ari has anxiety issues; Vincent is unsure if he wants to date that supermodel he is friends with — but nothing that especially illuminates the creative angst of cinema or even, sadly, its inner workings. Ari has trouble with his Texas financier, played by Billy Bob Thornton, and his son Travis (Haley Joel Osment, the Sixth Sense kid but now looking more like the runner-up in some misconceived Jack Black lookalike contest), but most of that turns out to be about women and jealousy. Art vs. commerce is never a concern here. It’s mostly boobs vs. bottoms.

Entourage has several opportunities for satire, but it lets them all slip away; it’s satisfied to present a parade of celebrity cameos who stand for a caustic insider’s view: seeing Liam Neeson, for instance, give Ari the finger at a red light is Entourage’s idea of commentary on Hollywood jealousies. A final sequence is set at the Golden Globe awards, which perfectly sums up the movie’s ambitions. Not that it would ever win one, but to be fair, Hyde does look as if it would have a shot at a Golden Raspberry.
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Entourage: The movie version of the old TV show features the same characters — including Adrien Grenier's movie star and Jeremy Piven's agent-turned-studio-head — still making their way in Hollywood. The setting is interesting, but the movie doesn't do much except show lots of bare-breasted women and celebrity cameos. 2 stars out of 5 _ Jay Stone

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