Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Drunk Bus’ on VOD, a Ramshackle Charmer of a Coarse College Comedy

Now on VOD, Drunk Bus has all the stuff of a sleeper hit: Ozark’s Charlie Tahan playing a sad-sack bus driver, a potential breakout star in Austin body-mod personality Pineapple Tangaroa (whose role in the movie inspired a tangy, collectible Mondo poster), Moonrise Kingdom’s Kara Hayward in a supporting role and an opening title card for the ages, “Inspired by real shit.” (So it’s not technically a BOATS movie — Based On A True Story, if you’re not hip — and that’s just fine, just fine I say.) In a just world, John Carlucci and Brandon LaGanke’s directorial debut would win over a large swath of viewers; here’s why it’s a winner, and worth your five bucks.

DRUNK BUS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: February. Kent, Ohio. A college town. The Emoticon Era — 2006. Misery: Michael (Tahan) fires up the bus, does a safety check, gingerly plucks a pair of leopard skin panties from the floor and tosses it out the door. His boss squawks over the CB radio, “affectionately” calling Michael F—chop. CAMPUS LOOP, reads the digital sign over the windshield, and that’s Michael’s life. Past the same Christmas lights that haven’t been taken down yet, past the perennially misspelled restaurant sign (“roast beaf,” “quesodila”), past the frat house where the fratboys splat the windshield with meatball subs and such, past F— You Bob (Martin Pfefferkorn), the old man in the motorized chair Michael watches out for, and F— You Bob yelling “F— you” is his reward. Passengers chug 40s and show their ass and Michael picks them up at dorms and drops them off at bars and picks them up at bars and drops them off at dorms and it’s clear he’s the only person in this vehicle not having fun — and then gags as he cleans up after the blasted-drunk girl who blew doodoo all over the aisle.

Round and round he goes. It’s a metaphor, see, for Michael’s life. He graduated and was a pretty decent photographer-artist but when Amy (Sarah Mezzanotte) dumped him after five years together — with no sex because God was always watching, you may pause to moan woefully for him here — he carved a rotten little rut for himself that’s been getting deeper for many months now. He has a couple friends in Kat (Hayward) and Justin (Tonatiuh), but they don’t seem to hang out except when Michael’s busing them around. His roommate (Zach Cherry) is a doofus who’s a registered sex offender because he got busted peeing in a Chuck E. Cheese parking lot. Michael drives all night and goes to bed and gets up in the afternoon and masturbates to pics of Amy on his Razr flip phone and is up for a Safety Award at work for four years without an incident, an accolade that carries with it the reward of a $25,000/year full-time job. Then Amy texts and says she’s going to be in town and they should get together, and Michael, as usual, waffles more than the Eggo factory. He types out response after response and deletes all of them.

One night, Michael tries to settle the unruly crapheads on the bus and gets popped in the face for his efforts — the kind of crap that fits nicely into our dear melancholy bus driver’s cycle of self-hatred. So the boss hires security for him in the form of Pineapple (Tangaroa), a burly Samoan fella decked out with face tats, crazy ear gauges and punk-rock studs and leather. Pineapple can talk to anybody and is full of goofy wisdom and gives good headbutting lessons, all of which Michael kinda needs. Michael’s routine is hereby upset by a big personality who inspires him to loosen up and live in the moment — smoke some weed, set off some big loud fireworks during the wee hours, fight back against the a-holes for a change, maybe have a sexual mishap that’s like American Pie meets The Exorcist. You know, stuff like that.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Drunk Bus is a post-Apatow comedy wrapping in elements of Pineapple Express, Neighbors (the 2014 one, not the Aykroyd/Belushi 1981 lost masterpiece), Old School and such raunchinesses, with a little bit of neo-emo feelsies from the likes of Superbad and Booksmart.

Performance Worth Watching: Tangaroa disrupts the usual tropes with a wise-weirdo characterization that shows a little mysterious depth of soul beneath the surface wackiness. He brings energy to the movie without resorting to silly caricature or OTT overtures.

Memorable Dialogue: Kat sums up Pineapple’s de-escalation techniques: “He’s like the bro whisperer!”

Pineapple’s wisdom, applied to the topic of sex: “F—in’s important!”

Sex and Skin: Did I mention the American Pie meets The Exorcist scene? Yes? Well, you’ve been warned.

Our Take: Drunk Bus is a big slice of pepperoni pizza with a dash of pepper flakes on it — comfort food with just enough spice to make it interesting. The Michael character is from a long line of movie depresso-crybabies who need to be grabbed by the lapels and throttled from their sleepy not-really-lives, and we sympathize with him in the generic way we do with anyone who isn’t particularly charismatic but has the potential to be more than just a sack of crap. Wisely, scripter Chris Molinaro surrounds the bland-by-design protagonist with characters who are funny and authentic, with the underrated Hayward (go watch To the Stars, stat!), Dave Hill as a sloppy weed dealer known as Devo Ted (Devo as in “Whip It”) and the bigger-than-life Tangaroa adding color to the barf-beige tones of Michael’s existence.

With its bursts of classically crass college humor, nobody will mistake Drunk Bus for a masterpiece, but it’s smarter than your average mainstream yuckfest and funny without being hyperbolic. It peels back a layer of two from the onions of its characters, and strums just enough heartfelt tonal chords to make us care about any bruised hearts or fractured friendships that may occur as Michael tries to pull his boots from the mud. I laughed and I gave a crap, which doesn’t always happen in movies about post-grad go-nowheres who drink a lot and don’t know themselves.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Drunk Bus is charming in its own ramshackle way, and frequently funny. It’s a step to the left of the usual comedy stuff. Pair with the similar tones of recent coming-of-age dram-com North Hollywood and enjoy.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Where to stream Drunk Bus