Drunk Bus: A Wintry Comedy Stuck In Some Uncomfortable Stereotypes

By Liam Lacey

Rating: B-

Careering between comedy and inspirational parable, Drunk Bus is set in a wintry Ohio college town, where Michael (Charlie Tahan) is a twenty-something bus driver on a nightly campus loop ferrying plastered undergrads home from bars and parties.

What’s sad is that Michael graduated from that same college and has been spinning his wheels since his high school girlfriend Amy (Sarah Mezzanotte) “moved on” nine months ago to head to New York. Like a worse-paid Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, he endures nightly indignities and vomit clean-up with a wounded stoicism (a quality that will be familiar to anyone who has seen Tahan as Julia Garner’s lantern-jawed hillbilly cousin Wyatt in the Netflix series, Ozark.)

Michael’s unseen dispatcher (voiced by Will Forte) lures him to settle into his adult misery: Hang on for the safe driving award, wait a little longer, and earn the 25-grand a year plus benefits that come with full time position.

Drunk Bus, which was written by Chris Molinaro and co-directed by Funny or Die contributors John Carlucci and Brandon LaGanke, does a good job of establishing Michael’s embarrassingly sad existence, then opts for some cringey stereotypes when it comes to his redemption.

After Michael gets punched by a passenger, the bus company provides him with a security guard, a large bald Samoan man in a leather jacket and chains, with a face covered in tattoos, giant earrings and piercings through his lip and tongue. His name is Pineapple which seems unlikely except that’s the actor’s name: Pineapple Tangaroa, an Austin, Texas-based tattooist and actor (Puncture, Song to Song). Pineapple is a genuinely appealing screen presence; the character is the incarnation of the dreaded magical ethnic trope.

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(What makes this a little more complex is that co-director LaGanke actually was a campus bus driver in Kent, Ohio, and Tangaroa was actually assigned as his security guard).

Still, he’s definitely magic. Almost everyone in the film can see that Pineapple has special insights. “You’re Yoda,” coos Kat (Kara Hayward), a pretty girl who travels with her gay friend Justin (Tonatiuh) on the bus and seems destined to become Charlie’s romantic salvation.

Pineapple is also “the Bro whisperer” for his ability to intimidate and cajole frat boys from getting into fights. Pineapple even has the ability to intuit that Michael has “never shampooed his Wookie,” which means he’s a virgin.

As we learn in flashback, Michael’s ex, Amy, a strict Christian, didn’t believe in pre-marital sex, though she and Michael spent a few years sharing an uncomfortable bed. When Amy sends Michael a text saying she’s coming back to town and would like to meet up, he’s thrown into turmoil. What does the wink emoji at the end of the message mean? That she’s ready to change her mind?

At this critical point, it’s up to Pineapple to show Michael how to be a real man. That means confronting the frat boys who throw crap on his windshield every night, stealing a couple of 40-ouncers of malt liquor, and getting wildly drunk themselves. While bolstering Michael’s masculinity levels through fights, sex, and high-risk behaviour, Pineapple helps convince Michael that Amy wants to screw more with his head than his body.

Drunk Bus has some pros and cons. At its best, it evokes the freewheeling style and emotional pangs of Greg Mottola’s 2009 film, Adventureland. Onscreen together, Tahan and Tangaroa have the mismatched physiques and rapport of an updated Stan and Ollie.

There are a couple of decent cameos from comedians, including Zach Cherry as Michael’s oafish roommate Josh, and Dave Hill, as a pot-dealing weirdo known as Devo Ted, who worships “the seminal art-punk band that formed one town over.”

The negatives here include Farrelly Brothers-style disability humour, including a hot-to-trot goth nursing student nicknamed Night Tara (she has screaming nightmares), and an elderly mentally ill paraplegic named “F—k You Bob” on account of his favourite phrase.

The bigger eye-roll here though is yet another story about an insecure white introvert who finds a large dark-skinned man to help him restore his masculine mojo, even if something like that really did happen.

Drunk Bus. Directed by John Carlucci and Brandon LaGanke. Written by Chris Molinaro. Starring Charlie Tahan, Pineapple Tangaroa, Kara Hayward, Zach Cherry, Tonatiu, Dave Hill, Sarah Mezzanotte, and Will Forte. Available on digital on demand May 21.