'Entourage' lacks heart and a head
I wasn鈥檛 exactly a student of the HBO series 鈥淓ntourage,鈥� which ended聽its eight-year run four years ago, so I come to its movie incarnation, which picks up about a week after the end of the series, with聽relatively fresh eyes. Fresher eyes, perhaps, than its perpetrators, who haul聽out a boatload (yacht load?) of clich茅s about life in the fast La-La lane.聽
The clich茅s are, I suppose, the point. People are slavering for this film because of the clich茅s: the bikinis and palm trees and glitzy mansions聽and all the backstabby Hollywood behavior that comes with them.聽
Back are Vince (Adrian Grenier), a big movie star, and his posse,聽鈥淓鈥� (Kevin Connolly), Johnny 鈥淒rama鈥� (Kevin Dillon, grossly overdoing聽the sleazeball shtick), and Turtle (Jerry Ferrara), plus Ari (Jeremy Piven),聽Vince鈥檚 former agent and the new studio head who greenlights Vince鈥檚聽costly directorial debut. When Vince鈥檚 movie overruns its budget, Ari聽attempts to soak the film鈥檚 Texan co-financier (Billy Bob Thornton) for聽more millions, which invites the financier鈥檚 dorky son (Haley Joel聽Osment), bedazzled by starlets, to play God with the project.
All this is an excuse for the usual buddy-buddy badinage, courtesy of聽writer-director Doug Ellin, and some occasionally funny, indignant real-life cameos from the likes of Warren Buffett, Liam Neeson, and Armie聽Hammer (the best one).聽
As a kind of hypothetical, second-string 鈥淥ceans鈥� franchise,聽鈥淓ntourage鈥� may have, to borrow movie studio jargon, legs. But it lacks聽heart and a head 鈥� which, I suppose, is also the point. This slick doodle of聽a movie is nothing so much as an advertisement for itself. Grade: C (Rated R for pervasive language, strong sexual content, nudity and some drug use.)
