Saturday Night Live’s genealogy can be traced back through decades of villainous man-boys: from the embarrassed “We had homework?” grins of young Adam Sandler and Jimmy Fallon to Andy Samberg’s unkempt permanent bed to the scarecrow hair of the three sad maidens that make up Please Don’t Destroy exists.
NYU friends Martin Herlihy (son of longtime SNL writer Tim Herlihy), John Higgins (son of longtime SNL writer Steve Higgins), and Ben Marshall (son of a Georgia couple without Wikipedia pages) came aboard the sketch institution brought in to produce digital short films in 2021, as a natural successor to The Lonely Island. But instead of perfect parody, they prefer pieces of banal absurdism with cracked mirror versions of themselves behind the scenes at 30 Rock that are slightly less unhinged than 30 Rock’s.
Martin’s new friend, who happens to be 10, comes over for a late-night writing session; The boys share the great Pete Davidson clips from their own careers as stand-up kids, playing Def Jam material about “butt-kicking” at the Apollo; Guest host Bad Bunny insists on performing his ill-advised Shrek remake.
With their unlikely feature film “Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain,” the three move to small town North Carolina as idiots far outside of show business, even though “Ben,” “Martin,” and “John” remain suspended in one state of the arrested youth. As in fellow Tisch alum Derrick Comedy’s “Mystery Team” – which traveled the same snub-to-cult pipeline expected for this planned Peacock theatrical release – a divide emerges as two prepare to tiptoe into adulthood sneak and leave the third behind.
However, where the Derrick boys packed their foray into cinema with an insane density of bits, Please Don’t Destroy has a frustrating lack of consistency as it introduces itself to an audience unfamiliar with their rhythms shaped by TikTok’s compressed format is. With a roughly 50/50 ratio of inspired silliness to repetitive edits as jokes, they’re caught between a certain amount of obvious talent and the temptation to resort to their safest tendencies.
John wants nothing more than to kick back with his buddies and crush some Truly brand hard seltzer in the rare case of product placement that works as comedy. So he finds himself sidelined while the other two plan their respective plans for the future. Martin gets serious with his girlfriend (Nichole Sakura from Superstore, Money in the Bank), who urges him to undergo an adult baptism and wear pastel suits that make him look like Dayman. Ben works for his father (Conan O’Brien, who gives the film his quality imprimatur and some of its funniest moments) at the outdoors store Trout Plus and hopes to impress him with his offer for a salon that caters exclusively to little boys .
The solution to all their problems is to look for a bust of Marie Antoinette hidden in a nearby forest. To get them, however, they have to turn to two greedy park rangers (Meg Stalter and X Mayo). A cult, a cameo from one of the “Stranger Things” kids, and a narration courtesy of John Goodman tie together a storyline that one would think would be too short to drag out so much, how he makes it past the hour limit.
While the tongue-in-cheek Bobbsey Twins adventure is fairly easy to mock, the screenwriters’ schtick often boils down to discrete, structurally recycled mini-sketches. They return again and again to the humor of record players, in which a scene in progress is interrupted by conflicting counterpoints; After the opening scene’s happy morning drive to work, which is interrupted by a car breakdown, harassment from beer-hungry teenagers, and an encounter with the police, the impact gradually diminishes.
Her other approach is to loudly express her disbelief at strange flourishes that could have worked had they not been acknowledged. A hawk chasing her away struts away with the air of “I thought so,” then Ben gilds the lily by asking why she “runs away with an attitude.” (Given the frequency of this part in “Bottoms,” perhaps this is a generational shift among younger Millennials?)
Of course, the strength of friendship carries our trio through, and likewise the chemistry between three collaborators, who have maintained a good relationship since their student days, carries them over the weaker beats of their latest project. For better or worse, this is clearly the work of green artists, whose winning boyishness is balanced by a general aura of inexperience.
So many of the great studio comedies of the 21st century fall into the groove shared by old buddies trying to make each other laugh, a mode that only works when we’re part of the gang. Otherwise, the riffing seems like idle self-pleasure, and viewers begin to ponder the difference between innate fun and the skills required to make a film. All in all, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that this film was produced by Judd Apatow.