REVIEW: Take the 10 (2017)

The following is a quick review of Take the 10 – Directed by Chester Tam

In Take the 10, we see a day in the life of two friends – Chester (played by Tony Revolori) and Chris (played by Josh Peck) – wherein one of them desperately wants to sell his car before traveling to Brazil, while the other wants to go to a concert. Soon, however, their day is ruined by an awful boss, a surprising drive-by, and a violent drug dealer.

One of the opening jokes references Vincent Gallo’s extremely controversial The Brown Bunny, and the film continues to talk about oral sex and the central characters’ porn preferences. This is the kind of humor found in Take the 10. Now, I’m not a prude – not at all – I think jokes like these can be really funny when done well.

But I have to admit that I didn’t think the jokes here were particularly clever or funny. I quite frankly didn’t properly laugh once, I think I chuckled once over an awkward handshake but that was it. There was this particularly unfortunate moment, where I rolled my eyes as they tried to make bad pronunciations of ‘Eddie Murphy’ using fake accents funny. That just really didn’t work for me. I also think the structure of the film and the many title cards were really jarring.

Now, one of the reasons why one might be interested in the film is the film’s cast. You’ve got people like Fred Armisen and Andy Samberg here, but, sadly, they are only really in one or two scenes. I actually really liked Armisen’s scene, but I was terribly underwhelmed by what we got from Samberg’s scenes.

I tend to like these types of slacker comedies, and I had hoped this would’ve worked as well for me as Pineapple Express did, or, at the very least, as well as 30 Minutes or Less worked for me.

But Take the 10‘s structure ruined the movie for me, and as it was already marred by crude jokes that didn’t work for me, I, then, have to give Take the 10 a low score. It’s definitely not the worst Netflix original film from 2017, and I didn’t dislike watching it – but I didn’t enjoy it either.

4.5 out of 10

– Jeffrey Rex