American Vandal

It has been a hot second since I have straight up binge watched a show all the way through. I've been watching a lot of shows lately and a lot of them have a lot of episodes in it or multiple seasons. I still binge but I'll binge a couple episodes at a time and maybe finish a 12 episode season in about 2 weeks or so. It's definitely binging but it's not the instance where you sit down and watch something and don't get up till it's complete. Sometimes it all comes down to opportunity, some times it comes down to the show itself. With American Vandal, it was a little bit of both.

American Vandal is a true crime mockumentary set in a high school in California. It follows the incident that happened at the school where 27 penises were spray painted on 27 cars that belonged to the faculty of the school. Everyone immediately believes it was the resident stoner burnout, Dylan Maxwell (played by Johnny Tatro). There is an eye witness and the teachers say there is motive. Dylan is suspended from school and everyone believes it was him.

Then a pair of Sophomores in the AV club decide to make a documentary to look into the mystery of the penis drawings. These sophomores are Peter (played by Tyler Alvarez) and Sam (played by Griffin Gluck) and they spend 8 episodes investigating every single angle of this story to find the truth and determine the true perpetrator of the dick drawings.

And yeah if it sounds ridiculous that's because it really is. This show sets out to create a satire of the true crime fad that has really hit the United States by storm with things like Serial, and Making a Murderer. And they do a really good job at it.

I like both those shows and that almost makes it better because the show really delves into the investigation into things that are connected but are very loosely connected and all the narrator has to do is say, "Is this connected? I'm not really sure", and it's totally validated. And the show takes an incident that in all reality would not be that big of a deal and blows it into a huge conspiracy. And it. is. hilarious!

Seriously, it takes a lot to make me laugh out loud if I'm alone. I watched this show by myself and I was laughing really hard at the jokes and humor in this show.

A lot of the humor comes from the situation itself. This is a true crime show about a bunch of spray painted dicks. A lot of the humor comes from the characters and how seriously they take this situation. And a lot of the humor goes into the way they take a stupid situation like this and blow it up into a huge conspiracy with all the models and diagrams, all being executed by a high school sophomore.

The main characters are really fun characters because they take it so seriously. They see themselves as investigators and Jimmy Tatro's character is your lovable but flawed victim. He could be guilty, but he could also be innocent. And that's the other weird thing. The show actually draws you into the mystery and you really start to question, did Dylan draw the dicks or not? And if he didn't, who did?

A lot of credit goes to Jimmy Tatro. This is a guy that I don't really think is the funniest guy in the

world but I really have to respect his journey and the progress he has made from his beginnings. He started as a Youtube Personality and has since made it into pretty huge movies like 22 Jump Street, and Divergent. It's still a little weird seeing him in movies like 22 Jump Street because he started out so simple and blew up with YouTube.

Now I would say that Tatro is not the best actor in the world. This role is basically the same role he's been playing his entire career. He played it in 22 Jump Street and he will probably end up being cast as that burnout stoner douchebag again in the future. But it seems like he's working hard taking his career from the angle that works for him and I have to give him props for that.

They use the formula from Serial and Making a Murderer so well that you're drawn into this totally made up case. So much that the second google search for American Vandal is: American Vandal True Story.

The other fun element of the show are the people they interview. While there are some pretty funny characters in this show like the history teacher who just wants to be liked or the stereotypical overachiever, it's almost funnier when the supporting characters are straight and actually point out how ridiculous this whole scenario is.

There's a great scene that I laughed hard at when Dylan and Peter are on the phone with Dylan's lawyer and Peter speaks up. When the lawyer asks him who he is, he says he's the documentarian doing a true crime documentary on Dylan's case like Serial. The lawyer is almost in shock and says what we're all thinking, "That is a horrible idea".

It's humor like that and the timing that really makes this show a lot of fun.

The show takes a little bit of a serious turn, especially towards the end. This is kind of to be expected these days. A lot of comedies, especially the good ones will inject a little bit of drama and bring the audience in for a couple seconds throughout the series to reinfuse the tragedy so when the comedic elements tap into that tragedy it is funnier.

Now I will say that the dramatic moments, especially at the end don't always land. This is a show that had a diagram of what could be potential vantage points of a girl giving a guy a handjob after all.

However, it does bring in a little bit of heart to the whole situation and I thought that it was done pretty well.

My only question with this show is what is the total impact going to be? This is a pretty fun quick binge. It is only 8 episodes and you will go through it very quickly. I'm not sure if this show will go down as one of the best Netflix shows out there but I definitely am putting it above a lot of originals, especially some of which I've seen recently.

I really hope they don't do a sequel to this. What worked about this show was how fresh it felt and the satire of the true crime dramas out there. If we get an American Vandal season 2, they would have to find a totally different situation, probably in a totally different location with different characters and at that point you're jus creating the same thing you've already done pretty well.

However, I feel like American Vandal is a show that might slip past a lot of people. I'll admit, it didn't look that great to me at first and I didn't expect to binge watch it. But once you're past the first episode, it's very difficult to quit, especially for the people who were obsessed with Making a Murderer, another show I really don't think they should make a sequel season for (but that's a different post.

I really enjoyed American Vandal. It satirized where it needed to satirize. Was genuine where it needed to be genuine, and was just down right funny overall. It concerned me a little when Netflix said that they want to go 50% original content. I get worried that they are just gonna start throwing whatever they can at the wall and see what sticks. But if everything is as well made and well thought out as American Vandal is, I think I'll continue on this Netflix original binge I've been working on (or at least I feel like I have, I don't know if it reflects in what I've been reviewing).

But what did you think? Do you think Netflix is doing the right thing putting all their money in original programming? What kind of movie or show genre would you like Netflix to tackle next? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for what you think I should put on the blog next. If you follow me, you can get updates as well as live tweets from the shows and movies I'm watching at the moment.

I'll leave you with this. It only felt right to put something from Life According to Jimmy on here. Enjoy!