Doobious Sources (2017)

Zorn and Reg are two stoners who work as free lance journalists but without any ethics. They don't fully trust each other so they are constantly recording all of their time together.  Their underhanded was come home to roost when a rich man they set up comes looking for revenge.

DOOBIOUS SOURCES is going to work best for a certain audiences. The best way to determine that is to answer two questions:

How do you feel about stoner comedies? If you find the thought of a long line of weed related jokes funny then you'll probably like this.

Do you like found footage films? If you can sit through a movie where is cut together from the video the two leads are constantly shooting of each other and looks like it, then you have an even better shot at liking it.

To be honest unless it's Cheech and Chong I tend not to like stoner comedies. Outside of the classic duo I find most stoner comedies one note. There is only so many wasted jokes that can be made and usually after about two minutes all of the variations are used up. DOOBIOUS stops the straight run of gags relatively early but it's always there, which is a shame since has this been played a bit straighter this would have been a better film. To be certain the level of the jokes improves once things get going and I actually smiled several times. There are funny jokes here, none of them have to do with drugs.

Another problem with most stoner comedies,as illustrated here, is that by making the leads, Zorn and Reg, stoners you kind of limit were you can go with the characters. There really isn't much to them and as a result the film kind of stalls with the film becoming a kind of extended sketch instead of a full on movie. I found it hard to root for the guys when they didn't change much and didn't have a wide enough range to sell some of the gags. While in an unnecessarily difficult Scandinavian  art film characters may not change over the course of a film that doesn't work in a light comedy.

While I like the idea of dueling camcorders so that each man always knows what was said, the practicality of actually watching a film cut together from the recorders loses it's luster pretty fast. Had they just held the cameras it would have worked but actually shooting that way worked against the film. It defeats the purpose of going found footage since found footage is suppose to limit our view, here the film cuts back and forth, nothing is limited, so why did they bother? I'm not sure except it's an excuse for not having a big crew and it explains the multiple crappy camera angles.

Despite my bitching DOOBIOUS SOURCES isn't a bad film. I don't hate the film. It's amusing to a point but it is decidedly not my cup of tea. I've seen enough films to have started this piece with the questions about what the film was since I know those are going to be the deal breakers for most people.  Going in I knew I was not a fan of stoner comedies but I'm always open for a laugh. I also know that I don't mind found footage if done well so I thought I'd try it.  It didn't work for me. Again that isn't to say it's a bad film, more it really wasn't my drug of choice.

As for the rest of you if you like stoner comedies and don't mind found footage give it a shot. If not take a pass.

DOOBIOUS SOURCES is available for download on iTunes, Amazon and other streaming platforms.