Best F(r)iends Volume 1 is something that I just had to see. It stars one of my two favorite actors and it doesn’t feature Clint Eastwood. Tommy Wiseau is such a wonderful enigma that has the strangest lack of charisma that manifests itself as charisma. He is the only actor I have seen everything he has been in, though it helps that he has been in so few things.
Best F(r)iends does utilize Tommy well. His weirdness is allowed to flow over the screen and at times it seems as if he simply was let off script to improvise. Nothing as memorable as The Room, but Tommy feels more like himself here. That though is about the only positive of Best F(r)iends. The script is worse than bad, it is instead forgettable and boring. Bland characters flutter in and out of the story played by F list actors. Their lines were written and delivered with just enough professionalism to take out any sort of campy fun.
The editing is particularly bad. Everything goes on far too long. Beats, shots, sequences, acts all drag along like an uncaffeinated worker on a Monday morning. A well trained razor could cut the film down to forty minutes. I suppose Volume 2 will be the same slog so that both together would instead form a singular, much tighter movie. In this way the main appeal of the movie, Tommy, would be able to maintain a much greater presence within the film instead of always cutting away to more mundane aspects.
For that reason I would recommend this only if you are a fan of Tommy Wiseau and even then, I would only recommend renting it digitally as opposed to purchasing it. By the same measure, I will not attempt to go to the theaters for Volume 2 but just wait till it comes to rental.
