Jarrod Carmichael’s On The Count Of Three is no laughing matter
The comedian’s grim directorial debut turns a death wish into a revenge fantasy
Film Reviews On the Count of Three
Jerrod Carmichael’s directorial debut and star vehicle On The Count Of Three, which revolves around a suicide pact made by two best friends, bears no resemblance to The Carmichael Show or his stand-up sets, even if he casually joked about offing himself during his SNL monologue. Brooding and languorous, the film is devoid of personality, his or otherwise—which is not necessarily to say that it’s bad, but that you should calibrate your expectations accordingly. Indeed, the film’s trailer carried a trigger warning and phone numbers for both the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and the Crisis Text Line, a clear indication of what lies ahead.
The film opens with an out-of-nowhere nod to John Woo, as Val (Carmichael) and Kevin (Christopher Abbott of Hulu’s Catch-22) aim pistols at each other in a strip club parking lot and commence the titular count. A single gunshot is heard over cut-to-black, before the tone immediately shifts to irony with the dissonant deployment of The Free Design’s cheerful “Love You” on the soundtrack. Flash back to earlier that day, where Kevin is ruminating in a hospital after a suicide attempt a few days before. He verbally abuses a therapist when his “I feel so lucky to be alive” spiel fails to stick. Kevin has been treated for mental issues since he was an 8-year-old in foster care, and has apparently had enough.
Val, meanwhile, works a dead-end job selling mulch. His colleague Todd (Jamie Mac) obtusely employs the phrase “crack the whip”—repeatedly, lest it go over your head the first time—to describe management clamping down on smoke breaks. Travis Tritt’s “It’s A Great Day To Be Alive” is heard, presumably over their store’s sound system, a befitting accompaniment for any bleak small town (a composite of dumpier locations in Ottawa, Ontario, and Syracuse, New York). Upon receiving news of his promotion to floor manager, Val immediately goes inside a bathroom stall and tries to hang himself with a belt. In case you missed it the first time, the film again hammers home “It’s A Great Day To Be Alive,” with Todd singing the tune a cappella within earshot.
After Val’s attempt fails, he decides to facilitate Kevin’s escape from the hospital, weapons ready in the getaway Jeep, which brings us back back to where the film started. But Kevin chickens out, and suggests they table the double suicide until later that day. As they review options for their last day on Earth, carrying out long-harbored revenge fantasies fast emerges as the no-brainer. Kevin faces down a high school bully, and plots to assassinate Dr. Brenner (Henry Winkler), a therapist who molested him as a boy. Val confronts his abusive father (J.B. Smoove), who stole money from him.
Carmichael and Abbott exhibit minimal chemistry on screen, and there’s little evidence that Val and Kevin are besties. At points they come close to a new lease on life, at a shooting range and at the dirt bike track where they used to work, an implication that their will to live is somehow tied to their attainment of power and their aggression level. The film teases the potential of this platitudinous life-affirming discovery, only to turn around and validate Val and Kevin’s view that the world is indeed a miserable place full of awful people. There is nary a chance of forgiveness or reconciliation between them and their remorseless former tormentors. It’s an incredibly pessimistic outlook, but one that some apparently find humorous.
Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch, two of the three creators behind Hulu’s Remy, claimed the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival for On The Count Of Three. They toy with a conventional narrative here on mental illness and suicide in the film, as Val and Kevin carry out obligatory conversations about suicide attempts being cries for attention or help, and suicide not being the answer to problems they face. But by day’s end, the two characters have seemingly shifted their positions and drawn very different conclusions for themselves.
On The Count Of Three is not didactic, and thank goodness the filmmakers at least have the good sense to recognize that preachiness helps no one and solves nothing. But the film dumbs down a complex and taboo topic by placing blame squarely on bogeymen like bullies and abusers. The filmmakers don’t invest any time depicting what depression might actually look and feel like, so that those who suffer from it can recognize it, and those who don’t can empathize. And at a lean 86-minute runtime, the film could have benefited from the inclusion of moments of silence, contemplation, and solitude to help illustrate the characters’ mental state, and the anguish and circumstances that drove them into their positions.
29 Comments
You know, the way the world’s outlook is going, I wonder how long it’ll take before a movie comes out that’s 100% unambiguously pro-suicide.
I’ve had an idea gestating for a while about a near future in which, due to the dystopian state of the world, assisted suicide is a widely-available medical procedure that anyone can elect to undergo (and in fact are somewhat encouraged to do so, in certain cases). The story would follow someone who’s chosen to do it and how they and their loved ones cope with it. It was very much inspired by my own depressed thinking, seeing the world as essentially irredeemable at this point and resenting the fact that all of us conscious humans were forced to endure it without a choice.
Soylent Green already did that.
Are you thinking of the film “Exit Plan” starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau?
Or “Next Exit” with Rose McIver, Rahul Kohli, and Karen Gillan?https://popculture.com/movies/news/rose-mciver-izombie-reunion-rahul-kohli-next-exit-tribeca-film-festival-exclusive/
More likely you can sell your body and organs to the filthy rich; why let those kidneys go to waste?
Also Vonnegut’s 1968 story , “Welcome to the Monkey House.” A morally corrupt story, but it got there early. It goes all the way back to Robert Chambers’s “Repairer of Reputations,” 1895, included in THE KING IN YELLOW.
no pun intended but i’m very morbidly curious.i think carmichael is a really interesting creative and i can cut him some slack on a first feature, plus abbott is an incredible actor (great supporting cast too).i also once wrote a short film with friend about a suicide pact coming to fruition so definitely feel some connection. also 86 minutes! bonus!
I need to watch this like I need a hole in my head.
Saw this at Sundance when it premiered, and yeah. This thing BLOWS. And I like Jerrod Carmichael, but every choice the film makes is like the bit where Sideshow Bob keeps walking into rakes.
There’s a reason this thing wasn’t promoted or hyped at all. If the cast was a different shade I’m sure it would be at least one letter grade lower.
If the cast members’ skin color mattered that much to reviewers, Soul Plane would have been an “A”. Interesting, and in my opinion very wrong-headed, to think this bad review/letter grade is some kind of softball review to not look prejudiced. I really don’t think PoC are THAT sensitive that every review needs to be softened to keep a reviewer from being called racist. I think that says more about you than the actual review or the audience for it.
Jaysis, does this Laser guy always piss and moan about how everyone is his inferior and ignorant? Wasn’t he banned under another name?
I didn’t say either of those things.
I’ve seen your comment history, sunshine.
Cool. You don’t matter.
Also I’ve literally never called anyone “my inferior”. But yeah, you’re definitely really really stupid.
Their post history is odd. They post this stuff but then they go out of their way to complement people on their bravery for posting about social justice issues. They do remind me of another poster who also told me I was “so brave” before. It so nice to be validated. Plus their handle is Laserfacelvr. Laserface is a great poster and clearly this person loves everything they say. They can’t be all bad right. Maybe this account was hacked and this is a bot trying to sabotage their work to encourage us to stand for social issues and to be brave!
wow, soul plane was released in a totally different time my dude. woke was certainly not a mainstream idea back then like it is now, and it certainly wasn’t a marketable quality like it is now. Dude’s got a material point.
I have to disagree with your police work there, Lou…er, Bryan. I picked that film to make a rhetorical point, not as a specific example. But to say that films with black leads/casts (or other PoC) get easier treatment from critics because of ‘woke’ (which isn’t a real thing other than mainstream shorthand for people being held accountable for their bullshit, but that’s another long conversation) doesn’t hold water. As an example, I’ll pick other recent movies with black leads/creators that were panned: *Little*The Upside*Gemini Man*Spiral*The Hitman’s Wife (and sequel)*A Journal for Jordan*The Little ThingsSo, by the other guy’s logic, the critics who panned those movies should have been terrified of being picketed (or something?) by black folks because they would have been identified as racists. I think you’re hooking your wagon to someone who sees PoC conspiring all over to ruin the ‘mainstream’ somehow and get…what exactly out of that?
Also, it’s really quite interesting how PoC are usually characterized as introducing race into conversations that aren’t about race. Hmmm…
soul plane was almost 20 years ago, where most of the gen z sensitives were pre-teens or younger. don’t use outdated data to support your point please and thanks
Soul plane came out 20 years ago.
your surety belies your ignorance. the cast isn’t one shade so what different shade are you even talking about? next time, don’t be a simp and just say what you mean
Wait, what?To be clear, a movie you haven’t seen was reviewed here and graded a C – which isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement. You, in your all-knowing wisdom, felt compelled to comment that you’re sure this movie – a movie you haven’t seen – would have been “at least one letter grade lower” (so at best a D) with a cast of a different shade.??May I ask, what prompted you to progress from being one of those guys who leaves low scores on IMDb for movies you’ve never seen with a ‘different shade of cast’ … to now gracing us with negative comments on AVClub for a movie you haven’t seen with a ‘different shade of cast’? Were you especially idle today?
The trailer looks good.
Ah, Christopher Abbott, the American Jon Snow.
The review – and the opinions from people in the comments – are dampening my enthusiasm for this. But I can’t help it – that trailer looks pretty great. I’m getting the impression that it’s tonally similar to Observe and Report, which I absolutely loved. What I also absolutely love, is that Travis Tritt song. I’m maybe putting a little too much faith in this being up my alley, but I’m wondering if this isn’t a case of ‘This movie is very much not for everyone, but the people it is for will really like it’.