Good Mourning (2022)

1 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Weed Limits

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

It passes by easily enough, but without help from outside substances, this showbiz/stoner comedy doesn't really offer anything we haven't seen before, and never achieves more than a mild chuckle.

Actor London Clash (Colson Baker, a.k.a. Machine Gun Kelly) has just finished his hit TV series "Good Bad People" and is now hoping to land the lead role in the next Batman movie. Unfortunately, he wakes up to a text from his girlfriend, Apple (Becky G), reading "I wish I didn't have to do this thru text," followed by "Good Mourning," with a "u." A confused London reads it as a possible breakup, and fears the worst.

With an important 5 p.m. Batman meeting looming, he decides to go to Apple's house, where one of his best friends, Leo (Gata), accidentally breaks several vases containing the ashes of Apple's family. Another of his entourage, Angel (Zach Villa), decides that the three of them, plus Dylan (Mod Sun) and Fat Joe (Boo Johnson), need to smoke a whole bunch of pot to replace the lost ashes. As the day drags on, London decides that it's more important to win back Apple than to land the role, but is he making a mistake?

Written and directed by recording artists Machine Gun Kelly (going by his real name, Colson Baker) and Mod Sun, Good Mourning gives us a somewhat hapless, somewhat insecure hero in London Clash. That, and his misfit group of friends at least make him somewhat relatable. It's much harder to believe that this tall, wiry stringbean would ever be considered for Batman — the movie doesn't seem very savvy about the inner workings of showbiz — but maybe that's part of the joke.

The movie features several funny women, including Megan Fox (Baker's real-life partner) as an LGBTQ+ roommate who has little patience for the boys, but can nonetheless get them out of any jam. Dove Cameron is London's new, no-nonsense personal assistant, and Whitney Cummings is his foul-mouthed, high-powered agent. Less funny is Jenna Boyd as London's stalker.

Everyone seems relaxed and game, but somehow Good Mourning never achieves a spark. There's no energy. The screenplay snaps together well enough, but it also feels like a product of a screenwriting class, a first effort. Outtakes during the end credits reveal that improv was encouraged (with Pete Davidson contributing the lion's share), but even those bits feel limp. A final gag involving the awful final episode of "Good Bad People" pretty much sums this up.