Elijah's Ashes (US 2017)

The Gist:

In order to meet the demands of their father's will and not lose the family house, two brothers, one gay (but not too gay), and the other, a homophobic ass, must take their father’s ashes to be buried in another town, so drunken anger filled roadtrip ensues.

Comments (with spoilers because I can’t be bothered to generalize/hide boring plot points ) :

It seems there are lots of people who like this movie, finding it witty and fun. I found it ‘meh.’ Meaning that I didn't think the story was engaging or funny. An issue for a dark comedy. Thing is, if you can think of funny situations involving a road trip to transport ashes to a cemetery, you’re probably thinking of funnier things then happen here. It also doesn't help that the 'dark' aspect of comedy is thrown out at the very end for an attempted uplifting ending that doesn't entirely work and feels out of place. 

My main issue with the humor is the jerk homophobic brother is relentlessly so, so his dialogue is pretty much just an ongoing unstopping stream of bad gay jokes, mingled with misogynistic jokes. The character being an ass is not the issue. It's that the jokes go on and on to the point where the impact fades and he becomes not so much a shocking and outrageous terrible person as much as boring. 

The gay brother isn’t much more interesting. He’s played as the regular guy ‘straight man’ so to speak to the jerk brother’s crassness. His 'schtick' is that he’s dealing with internalized homophobia (spoiler) so has issues of his own to deal with. Something that could make him interesting, but doesn’t since the only thing done with this is have him try to sleep with a woman for some reason (another spoiler) and be withdrawn and dull. A detail which makes a recurring joke odd. Nearly every man they meet on the trip is not only gay but also  really ‘into’ the gay brother, which is not so much funny as unbelievable that anyone would be into such a sullen dud of man.

There is als a very problematic bit involving an overly long joke about a trans woman prostitute. Part of the "humor" is that everyone, jerk brother, gay brother and others, refer to her as “It.” So very funny... not. 

All a long way to say I did not find the movie funny or interesting, so the best I can say about it is that the acting is adequate.

Women:

Yes

People of color:

An Asian bartender and an African-American pimp. Yes, the hooker has a black pimp... 

Gratuitous nudity:

No

• Director: Ryan Barton-Grimley
• Writer: Ryan Barton-Grimley
• Actors: Ari Scheider, Ryan Barton-Grimley
• Time: 87 minutes
• IMDB