Review of “Entourage”

It’s the natural evolution of the amazing HBO show of the same title, yet it only delivers on the promise of carrying over the series to the big screen, not fulfilling its promise of actually doing it justice.

Entourage is not a bad movie, it’s just not good. It’s an average episode of the original TV series, extended to the length of an hour and forty-five minutes. For the novelty of seeing the gang back together, it’s worth it, but at the same time, being a prior fan means you’ll be cursed with understanding just how average the work done here is. I went with a friend who knew nothing of the series beyond my brief description of “four douches in LA having sex, talking about movies and dealing with an angry guy named Ari Gold”. My friend, as a result, had a pretty good time having gone in with no standards to hold the movie against.

I feel like half of it comes from my sadness with Jeremy Piven’s performance. First off, in every interview leading up to this movie, he complained about how taxing it is to be Ari, and gave off the impression he doesn’t like playing the character. And when we couple this with Ari’s re-imagined less-angry-self personality that he adopted at the end of season eight, which carries over into the movie, the end result is just not a lot of fun. Considering he’s supposed to be the most colorful of the five main characters, when Turtle ends up having the most range, you know something’s wrong.

My other issue is that Doug Ellin felt the need to give all five characters objectives and conclusions in this single movie. I understand he didn’t want any of them to feel screwed over, but I would’ve liked more focus on the central plot around Vince and Ari’s dealings with the dumb Texans, as well as keeping Drama’s stuff, but doing away with Turtle’s shoehorned-in Ronda Rousey segments and Eric’s shit with Sloan. Seriously, that last thing with Eric could’ve been tightened to a one minute summary, just like they did in explaining Vince’s marriage from the end of season eight. And considering there’s only one funny scene that involves Eric at all, I just wasn’t feeling his arc this time around.

Overall, it felt more like a love letter to what Entourage stands for more than an embodiment of how great Entourage actually was. It was the statue dedicated to Batman, rather than the Dark Knight himself. In keeping with the metaphor, it was the Entourage movie we needed, but not the one we deserved.

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