No Way Jose could be a warning label for this depressing comedy about a depressing person who hates everything about his life and continues to hate it even after things change. For a comedy, it’s… well… depressing.
The humour of Director, co-writer and star Adam Goldberg is an acquired taste if this film is anything to go by. The taste of fellow screenwriter Sarah Kate Levy is also in doubt.
Jose is turning 40 and going through a mid-life crisis. His singing career has been relegated to children’s parties and his fiancée has discovered him listed on a sex offender phone app at a time when he’s too drugged to be able to explain himself. After she leaves him, he parks on a friend’s sofa – friends who seem oddly unphased by his situation.
Being on a constant downer, Jose seems only capable of complaining and being miserable, regardless of anything his friends do or say… not that they’re very pleasant people either.
Jose’s story is uninteresting, pretty much all of the characters are unlikable and annoying, and even the pace of the film seems to have fallen asleep trying to get through the tedium to the end. It culminates in his 40th birthday party when nothing seems to have changed, including his negative attitude. Only in the final seconds, post-party, when Jose reconnects with his ex fiancée, is there a potential spark of hope. Note the word ‘potential’.
The music in No Way Jose is one of the few enjoyable traits. The songs he sings are consistently good and sometimes funny – the explicit ones, particularly so. I dare say the soundtrack to No Way Jose would be a great buy, but the film itself goes nowhere, which is probably what this DVD will do sitting on a library shelf deservedly gathering dust.
Reviewed by Rod Lewis
Twitter: @StrtegicRetweet
Rating out of 10: 2
No Way Jose is out now on DVD and Digital.
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