Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Parker Seaman
Starring: Parker Seaman, Devin Das, Wes Schlagenhauf, Mark
Duplass
The various pandemic induced lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 saw filmmakers
grow restless and decide to film something, anything, just to keep their
creative juices flowing, get out of the house or avoid having to hang
out with their families. Whatever the motivation, these movies are
almost universally awful, filmed in sub-optimal conditions with
bare-bones plots thrown together to justify their existence.
Wes Schlagenhauf is Dying takes something of a meta
approach to COVID filmmaking. It's about a pair of filmmakers who decide
to shoot a movie during the lockdown, even though they've given
practically no consideration to what the movie is actually about. "Let's
just film us doing cool stuff," one of them says.
The filmmakers are played by Devin Das and Parker Seaman,
who also co-wrote the movie with the latter directing. Their characters
are also called Devin and Parker, which is odd considering how unlikable
they are. Things get meta very quickly when you realise that the real
life Devin and Parker have no more ideas for their movie than their
fictional counterparts, and spend most of the film shooting what they
might consider "us doing cool stuff," which amounts to little more than
stuffing their faces with fast food and mugging for the camera like so
many annoying millennial YouTubers.
The ailing Wes of the title is also played by an actor named
Wes Schlagenhauf. A prologue shows how he ended his friendship
with Devin and Parker following a row on the set of a commercial shoot.
Three years later, during the lockdown, Devin and Parker receive a
surprise phone call from their former friend, who lets them know he has
a bad case of COVID and reckons he only has days to live. Devin and
Parker decide to travel across the country to visit Wes before he
croaks, not out of any love for their old buddy but because they figure
it might make for a great movie. Spoiler: It doesn't.
What we get here is a movie with no ideas about a pair of filmmakers
with no ideas. On their journey, Devin and Parker bicker; not in that
charming It Happened One Night/The Sure Thing way, but
rather in a manner that comes off as so mean-spirited that it's
impossible to buy this pair as lifelong friends. Road movies are often
enlivened by the various characters the protagonists meet along the way,
but Devin and Parker don't meet anyone because everyone is stuck inside
binging Netflix and Disney+ (the latter streaming service is referenced
so often here that you begin to wonder if the filmmakers received a
brown envelope from Mickey Mouse). This means we're left in the
insufferable company of our two obnoxious leads for the bulk of the
movie.
Some of my favourite movies feature obnoxious protagonists, but if this
is the sort of person that's going to front your movie you need to make
them entertaining or insightful. These douchebags are neither, and it's
an endurance test to spend the film's mercifully brief running time in
their company. There's a central debate in the movie over whether the
title character really contracted COVID or is just seeking attention. I
took a PCR test after watching
Wes Schlagenhauf is Dying and tested positive for chronic
boredom.
