I recently was lucky enough to be able to see Bert and Arnie's Guide to Friendship before it was released on various VOD platforms today. The film is also getting a week long run at Brooklyn's IndeScreen starting Friday. The short version of this short review is it's worth the effort to either get it on VOD or to see it at IndeScreen.
The film stars Matt Oberg as Bert a married author and Stephen Schneider is Arnie a self professed ladies man. The film begins with both men being interviewed by an off camera person, they both think it's to be about something else, instead the interviewer wants them to talk about each other, which is not the best thing since it's clear that there is a rift between them. Eventually we get the story of how they met and why they are no longer getting along - Arnie slept with Bert's wife and things happened as a result.
An amusing comedy that is better than most recent inde comedies I've been seeing lately, this is also one of the few recent films to make me laugh out loud repeatedly. While they weren't deep belly laughs, they were in fact good hearty laughs that kept me smiling between each chuckle. I say this because there have been a couple of recent comedies which I liked, which made me smile and feel good but didn't really produce any laughs (Gerard Butler's Playing For Keeps for example).
That the film works as well as it does is due entirely to the cast, especially Oberg and Schneider who manage to sell their characters and their friendship with a bit more authority than you'd expect.
I really like the film a great deal and if I'm not waxing poetic or rambling on about it it's more an indication that some films really don't need to be explained, they simply need to be enjoyed. Go enjoy.
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