Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie   Starring: Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim Momentum Pictures RRP: £12.99 MP1176D Certificate: 18 Available 03 September 2012

Tim and Eric are given a billion dollars to make a movie, but squander every cent on celebrity makeovers and helicopter rides. The Schlaaang corporation - the film’s mobster producers - seek pay back. With head honcho Tommy Schlaaang putting out a contract on their lives, Tim & Eric flee L.A., reinvent themselves as Dobis PR and reply to an ad promising a billion dollars if they can turn around the dilapidated S’Wallow Valley Mall. Cue bizarre stores, screwball shop owners, a sickly man-child Taquito and a man-eating wolf that haunts the food court in a movie that dry humps good taste...

If you're a fan of Tim & Eric then you'll love Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie. However, if you find their sense of humour puerile and rather low brow then you're not going to find anything here to change your mind.

There's nothing here you won't have already seen parodied elsewhere - and probably much better - but Tim & Eric succeed mainly because, despite how downright odd they can be, you can't help but like them. There were a couple of instances when I thought "too far" (like the "stuffing a bunch of stuff" up Eric's penis), but on the whole this is fairly inoffensive.

There are several interesting guest star appearances. Including Jeff Goldblum (playing Chef Goldblum); Erica Durance (Smallville's Lois Lane); Robert Loggia (who wonderfully deliberately over acts); Zach Galifianakis; Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly and the great Ray Wise (who in all honesty is probably the only guest who adds really gravitas to the movie.

I loved the Diamond Jim opening to the film, which really did feel like a big budget naff film. And to be honest, I think it's little touches like this - which hark back to the sketch show element of the pair's TV show - that keep this from becoming boring. The main plot does start to drag a little, but thankfully there's the odd ridiculously over the top segment to make you forget about such silly details as a constructive narrative.

At the end of the day, yes it's rubbish - but, as with all Tim & Eric projects, that's the point. By parodying things that we know are cheesy, but have come to accept as a way of life (like the numerous production company credits before a movie starts) Tim & Eric are able to worm their way into your affections. You know they're characters are childish, selfish and really dumb, but you can't help but warm to them.

Not sure if there are any extras as we received a DVD-R disc with no menus or extras.

Fans will love it, everyone else will think it's a steaming bath full of shrim.

6

Nick Smithson