SELF RELIANCE -- Jake Johnson’s Funny Directorial Debut Fails Its Premise

Review by Cole Groth

If you were offered $1 million to survive a 30-day hunt for your life, would you take it? Probably not. If Andy Samberg offered you this opportunity and added in a loophole, allowing you only to be hunted when you’re completely alone, would you take the chance now? Jake Johnson proposes this absurd and fascinating concept in Self Reliance. Johnson’s directorial debut matches the humor from his acting career but fundamentally misses the mark since it doesn’t take anywhere near full advantage of the concept.

In this comedy, we follow Tommy (Johnson), a so-so man whose dull life takes an exciting turn after being proposed the earlier-mentioned idea. He has 30 days to live, all while trying to keep somebody by his side to keep him alive. At first, his family refuses to help him because they think he’s going insane - which is a little silly because Tommy doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to lose his mind this completely.

Several days go by without any hunters in sight, but once he spots somebody coming after him, he hires a homeless man (Bill Wiff) to always be by his side. Thus, no hunters come after him. After the film becomes a little boring, Johnson introduces Anna Kendrick’s character of Maddy. Maddy also claims to be a part of the game, leading the two to pair up in an effort to beat the game together. Again, though, with 30 days of the game to be played, the premise becomes stale very quickly.

The issue with this movie is that the hunters never feel like a threat. In fact, they aren’t even much of a thought in the background. We know they exist because the film keeps flashing a counter to show us how many days are left, and the characters talk about it constantly, but Tommy rarely has to survive these attackers, and when they do come after him, it’s lame. The 30 days of survival is too long of a time period because we skip through weeks at a time with almost nothing happening. If he made the game take place over a week and instead spent more time each day, the film would feel much more thought out.

As far as the cast goes, Self Reliance works. Johnson is a very funny leading man, playing Tommy with a level of sincerity that helps the film from feeling too goofy. Bill Wiff is hilarious as the homeless man turned sidekick for survival. Anna Kenrick is underutilized and doesn’t quite give the film her all — although it’s plain to see that her character’s writing holds her back, too. Andy Samberg makes a couple of brief appearances and steals the show every time. The rest of the cast does a pretty good job, but nothing is too notable.

Self Reliance is decent on a technical level but, again, will leave you feeling ‘meh’ after watching it because some great action sequences would’ve elevated the film to something so much more. It ends up feeling a little like a first draft of the finished product because there aren’t enough jokes to keep you laughing throughout the lack of thrills. With a better script behind it, this has a lot of potential to be great, but what stands is a funny movie without much to keep it feeling like the dark comedy it desperately wants to be.

Self Reliance releases in theaters for one night only on January 3 and hits Hulu on January 12

Rating: 2.5/5