Entourage – Mark Kermode’s worst film of 2015?

Entourage is the film version of the sitcom I never saw, and as it turns out, neither did film critic Mark Kermode. So far, I’ve only seen the trailers and they looked amusing enough, but sometimes the full experience can be a different kettle of fish altogether.

The film follows suddenly-risen movie star Vince Chase (Adrian Grenier), a ‘jeune premier’ of humble origins, who learns the ropes of the business and the the high-profile world of the wealthy happy few in and around Hollywood, but not alone: he brings from his native New York his atypical ‘entourage’ (hence the title), not glitterati or professionals but a close circle of friends since childhood, and his professional agent finds they often make his job harder as the Queens boys not only sponge on the star but also have his ear, so Vince is much harder to counsel.

Vince chooses his friend from home Eric (Kevin Connolly) as his manager, and LA professional Ari Gold (Mr Selfridge‘s Jeremy Piven) as his agent. Over the course of the series, they progress from kids from Queens, to actors, to producers and chase the funding and support to try to make the perfect movie for Vincent. And in this film, Vince Chase and his cronies finally take on Hollywood.

However, they also have to take on the film critics, and Mr Kermode clearly disliked it a lot when I saw him talk about this on The Film Review on BBC News last Friday, where he said to newscaster Gavin Esler, “You know when you look into the abyss, and the abyss looks back you? It’s like that; it’s a soul-shaking experience. It was horrible, Gavin, it was horrible!”

But then I later saw the video posted online of his review on BBC Radio 5 Live, opposite Simon Mayo, and his critique/rant (below) was even more defined. He said it’s a “comedy with no jokes, a satire with no satire” and that “it makes Sex And The City 2 look like a call to arms for the dispossessed masses of the world to rise up“, and also that it’s a less sensitive film than The Human Centipede! 🙂

This video really cracked me up 🙂

Last year, Mark Kermode’s worst film was Transformers: Age of Extinction, and it’s looking like this will be his worst of 2015.

Entourage is out in the cinema now. Watch the trailer here, and no doubt it’ll take a stack of cash and get a sequel in 2-3 years. I’m sure Mark Kermode is looking forward to that 😉