BEFORE: Happy Easter! Also, happy 4/20 if you're into that sort of thing, or Happy Hitler's Birthday if you're a fascist Nazi-lover, I guess. OK, that last one didn't factor into my decision when choosing my Easter movie, but I figured there was at least a chance that someone in this film would be seen smoking weed, I mean it is legal now, plus it looks like there are some older relatives in this film that could be smoking for medical reasons. Or not, I just don't know yet.
Either way, let's celebrate America's fourth-favorite eating holiday, after Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July. Wait, there's also Super Bowl Sunday - OK, Easter is probably America's FIFTH favorite eating holiday, Easter dinner can be a big deal, after all. There was some other reason to celebrate Easter, but it's not coming to me. I'm sure I'll remember eventually. Something about a rabbit that died and then came back to life and then delivered eggs to kids or something like that.
We celebrated with sausage & egg sandwiches from the hipster market, even though they had to add an eggs-tra surcharge to cover the still-too-high eggs-pensive cost of eggs. Then we went grocery shopping, which I think is an Easter tradition everywhere, that's what you do, right? (Still, I can't help feel like we forgot something...). Then when we got home my wife made espresso martinis. Eggs, shopping, chocolate, nah, I think we covered everything Easter.
Tiffany Haddish carries over again from "Landscape with Invisible Hand"
THE PLOT: Set around a family gathering to celebrate Easter Sunday, the comedy is based on Jo Koy's life experiences and stand-up comedy.
AFTER: Well, at least the poster is a reference to "The Last Supper", though with more food and family members, but fewer people over all. Jo Koy may have a lot of fans and followers, he just doesn't have many disciples, I guess. But why release a film titled "Easter Sunday" in August instead of, you know, Easter time? 2022 was a wacky year, I suppose - and who can predict release schedules?
The film follows a fictionalized version of Koy's Filipino-American family, aunts and uncles and his cousin, his sister and mother and son, plus a brief check-in with his ex-wife and her new husband, but they don't stay in the story for too long. What's important is that the fictional Jo Koy spends quality time with the actor playing his son, and they do this by taking a road trip to visit his family in his hometown, where there's a large Filipino community. Because Jo is a stand-up comedian, he travels a lot and that means he's missed a lot of moments in his son's life, and since he's simultaneously going on auditions for TV pilots, well, it doesn't look like that will change any time soon. Jo misses a meeting with his son's teachers after promising to be there, but no, his audition ran long and he couldn't make it to the school in time.
Nothing really changes on Easter Sunday, either, because there are SO many things going on. Jo's aunt Theresa is cooking lunch for the family and his mother will be cooking dinner, but first they all have to go to church (wait, THAT'S what I forgot to do today, oh well, maybe next year) and then there are complications with his cousin, who he loaned money to in order to start up a taco truck. But cousin Eugene pulls up in a "hypetruck" instead, with no tacos in sight, so it's a bit hard to envision what exactly that truck is going to sell - but Eugene's convinced that people are going to want to buy it at 2 am. Jo has to remind him that drunk people at 2 am are usually hungry, and tacos were in fact an excellent idea.
Jo's agent is always calling him with an update on the casting for a TV pilot - then the agent always pretends to be losing the cell phone connection, thus shortening all his calls. The casting director wants to hear Jo do the audition again with a heavy Filipino-American accent, which he refuses to do because technically his regular voice is a Filipino-American voice, so the casting director is either ignorant, insensitive or looking for more of a cultural stereotype, and Jo doesn't like any of those possibilities.
Meanwhile, there's a sub-plot about Eugene owing money to some gangster named Dev Delux, who he also borrowed money from, and Dev wants to collect $40,000 before the end of the day. So Jo and Eugene have to break away from the family Easter celebrations to try to sell a pair of Manny Pacquiao's boxing gloves (which Eugene stole from Dev) to a collector in order to use the money for the stolen gloves to pay back Dev, the owner of the stolen gloves. It's so simple that's it's almost genius, but maybe it's also way too simple to work. You know how complicated these comedy movies can get, nothing ever really works right.
So they go to the mall, where Jo knows that a certain sports merch dealer works out of the building's basement, and then gets caught up in recording a commercial for him, borrowing the line that Jo is known everywhere for, which is a tagline from a beer commercial and involves getting the party started, baby.
Also meanwhile, Jo's agent calls again and managed to smooth things over with the casting director, Jo will definitely get the part of the wacky neighbor on that sitcom pilot if he'll fly back to L.A. that night and do the Filipino accent for the casting director. But that would mean skipping out on the family dinner, plus it would only work if they settle that thing with the boxing gloves and get the money from the buyer in time to pay off the gangster. Whew, it's a lot to happen on a holiday, don't most people take this day off? And shouldn't the mall be like closed, or something on Easter? Yeah, I've got some NITPICK POINTS here.
Like why can't he do the accent for the casting director via Zoom or FaceTime? This is set post-pandemic, and I hear a lot of actors are doing this so they don't have to travel everywhere to do auditions in person. Also, how does just putting a pair of boxing gloves on suddenly give Jo the power to knock someone out with one punch? That's not how boxing gloves work, they're designed to soften blows, not increase their power.
Anyway, you guessed it, everything comes together at the family dinner - the gangsters show up, Uncle Arthur uses his martial arts skills to distract the gangsters, and after Jo punches out Dev his police officer ex-girlfriend shows up to arrest the bad guys. The phone accidentally got left on during the fracas, and the casting director got a look at Jo's crazy life and crazy family, and decides to build a new sitcom around that. Jo suffers a panic attack, but that's only weird because Will Smith's character was having those a couple of days ago in the "Bad Boys" sequel. I think it's the go-to now if screenwriters want to show that a character is vulnerable, like in "Iron Man 3".
It's a relatable comedy, but it's not really the most hilarious thing I've seen. Slice of life funny, in other words. It probably helps that Jo Koy's life as a stand-up comedian is already pretty crazy, there's a lot to draw from, with a divorced father and the wacky extended family, but maybe all the antics with the gangsters are just a bit too much. It just feels like if they kept the story to the family's Easter celebration there was really nowhere to go with it. Tiffany Haddish was the stand-out here as the crazy ex-girlfriend who's also a cop, and just like in "Bad Boys", her screen-time was way too short.
Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar (director of "Super Troopers 2")
Also starring Jo Koy (last heard in "Leo"), Lydia Gaston, Brandon Wardell, Eva Noblezada, Carly Pope (last seen in "Orange County"), Jay Chandrasekhar (last seen in "Quasi"), Eugene Cordero (ditto), Tia Carrere (last seen in "Rising Sun"), Melody Butiu, Joey Guila, Rodney To, Elena Juatco (last seen in "Kodachrome"), Lou Diamond Phillips (last seen in "The Big Hit"), Asif Ali (last seen in "Don't Worry Darling"), Dustin Ybarra (last seen in "Us'), Jimmy O. Yang (last heard in "Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe"), Michael Weaver (last seen in "An American Pickle"), Rodney Perry (last seen in "Coming 2 America"), Michael Jonsson, Xavi de Guzman, Arkie Kandola, Enid-Raye Adams (last seen in "A Guy Thing"), Denise Jones, Lana Jalissa, Louriza Tronco (last seen in "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb"), Linda Cumayas, Gavin Matts, Melanie Rees, Nida Pias Balatbat, Ruth Bidner, Sherry Mandujano (last seen in "Downsizing"), Wanya Morris (last seen in "Long Shot"), Mollie Gamo, and the voice of Brad Grunberg (last seen in "That's My Boy")
RATING: 5 out of 10 items for the balikbayan box
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