The Mimic (2021 | USA | 82 minutes | Thomas F. Mazziotti)

The Mimic doesn’t feel very much like a modern movie, and that’s not a slam. It’s a game attempt at the kind of verbally rapid-fire, chemistry-fueled, absurdist comedies that dominated American movie theaters in the ‘80s and ‘90s. A couple of decades ago, a scruffily charismatic Kurt Russell and a patently eccentric Bill Murray could just as easily be filling the slots occupied by Thomas Sadoski and Jake Robinson, respectively, in writer/director Thomas F. Mazziotti’s brand-new third feature, just out on VOD. 

Sadoski plays The Narrator, a widowed screenwriter whose life is upended by The Kid (Robinson), a chipper new neighbor. The Kid rapidly insinuates his way onto The Narrator’s life, worming his way onto the staff of the local newspaper that The Narrator writes for, and popping up everywhere The Narrator goes.

It’s essentially a one-note premise, but Mazziotti works hard to give it some distinction and life. The Narrator immediately pegs The Kid as a sociopath, but the two begin hanging out, a dynamic partly fed by The former’s loneliness, and partly by the eager-to-please hyperactivity of the latter. The resulting intellectual shell game generates chuckles and even a dose of suspense. Is The Kid a good-natured wannabe who just needs a mentor, or a legitimate threat? And how reliable is The Narrator’s subjective take on events, given his considerable emotional baggage? It helps that Sadoski and Robinson (both pitch-perfect and genuinely funny in very different ways) establish an engaging odd-couple chemistry right out of the gate. The feeling of stylized old-school comic energy’s reinforced by Mitch Davis’s fun, romping score, and by a reliance on banter that clips along with the precise high velocity of classic screwball comedy dialogue.

Mazziotti’s also been able to draw a surplus of familiar comic actors into the movie’s periphery. Arrested Development’s Jessica Walter, Marilu Henner, and Didi Conn (Grease’s immortal Beauty School Dropout, Frenchie) play other staffers on the small-town paper. Lovable neurotic Austin Pendleton has a great bit as a neurotic tailgater talked into a cathartic bit of vehicular mayhem. Gina Gershon’s on hand in a memorable turn as a boozy restaurant patron, and there’s even a wonderfully surreal turn that throws the great M. Emmet Walsh into one scene.

So it’s a bit of a letdown that The Mimic feels like something less than the sum of all these great parts. The movie’s verbal momentum seldom settles down long enough for either of the two protagonists to become fleshed-out. There’s an air of smug self-satisfaction (and a faint but definite streak of chauvinism) in The Narrator that sometimes chafes a little. And while the visual and verbal gags traffic in abundant cleverness, they seldom vault into the realm of side-splitting hilarity.

That said, comedies that don’t completely work are usually exercises in slow torture. The Mimic, imperfect though it is, makes for a smart and agreeable 80-some minutes of entertainment. Be ready to respect and appreciate it, and to smile a lot. Just don’t expect to discover your new favorite comedy.

The Mimic is now available on VOD. Photo credit: Gravitas Pictures.