BAD SHABBOS (Da iel Robbins 2024)

DANIEL ROBBINS: BAD SHABBOS (2024)24)

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THE CAST OF BAD SHABBOS

Holy day togetherness

"As if their weekly shabbat gathering wasn’t already a reason for them to all start kvetching, imagine what happens when a Jewish family from Manhattan’s Upper West Side accidentally murders one of their dinner guests. Or when their future and very goy-ish in-laws try to pronounce the word “chutzpah.” Or when the Wu-Tang Clan’s Method Man shows up wearing a yarmulke." - Jordan Mintzer, [I]The Hollywood Reporter.[/I]

In this raucous comedy of would-be crime, a well-off Upper West Side New York Jewish family is pushed to the extreme of complicity on Shabbos, the holy day gethering at the posh parental apartment when the younger black sheep's prank causes the sudden death in the bathroom of his sister's boyfriend. His older brother's non-Jewish fiancee Meg (Meghan Leathers) is there and her parents from Wisconsin are coming to meet the family. The assumptiion (there always have to be those, don't there?) is that the cadaver has to be placed elsewhere, or the death will be traced to the substance Adam (Theo Taplitz) put in Benjamin (Ashley Zukerman)'s drink. The very friendly black doorman Jordan (versitile Cliff "Method Man" Smith) has to be called in. He's very assimiliated - to a fault - and pals with head of the household Richie (veteran actor-producer-director David Paymer), but Richie's self-help formulas don't serve him now. Nor do the judgmental tendencies of his wife Ellen (Kyra Sedgwick), wo finds Meg's conversion ix just a watering-down of the line. But really this is about a lot of laughs, and it has those, once you adjust to the Jewish Addams family.

This was the audience favorite at Tribeca recently, but not everybody can adjust and there are some very negative reactions. You either love this or you loathe it, and when it's all over you may realize this is fun without being wither neither great art nor great comedy. Some devout an observant Jews may find it crossed the line. Some Gentiles hose acceptance of Jews hangs by a delicate thread may find it uncomfotable to watch. Those looking for sharp social satire may wish the interfaith prejudices had been more sharply deneated. My own first reaction was very negative. But the laughs start to flow easier after a while and you settle in.

Ben, the unintentionally offed boyfriend, turns out to be a two-timer, and Abby (Milana Vayntrub) has been wanting to break up with him for ages, so the family, who all eventually become aware of the corpse in the bathroom, isn't so cut up about young loser Adam's major boo-boo.

Suspense is created by having an on-screen countdown till the arrival of Jordan's unfreindly replacement in the lobby Cano (Alok Tewari), which is a matter of minutes. Then Beth (Catherine Curton) and John (John Bedford Lloyd), the Midwestern, Gentile parents, arrive unexpectedly at the apartment door because Jordan was away from the lobby woerking on this problem and didn't announce them. The decision has been to move Bed's body to his flat in Brooklyn for a "New York death" - to be found dead days later. But that job of physical conveyance turns out to be harder to carry out than Jordan thought.

Perhaps the business with the body have been more ingenious. But "Method Man" is a very smooth actor who conveys the role of Jordan so confidently it appears to hold everything together. As with any such comedy, we have an ensemble here, and its various parts interact in a lively and entertaining manner, with a feel-good finale. If this is murder, they all get away with it. That's comedy.

Bad Shabbos, 84 mins., debuted at Tribeca Jun. 10, 2024 winning the audience narrative feature award. It was shown also at the San Francisco, Miami and Charlotte Jewish film festivals, and at Hamptons, Virginia, Palm Springs, and Minneapolis St. Paul. Limited US release May 23, 2025, wider Jun. 6.