Movie Review: Entourage

“Oh yeah!” Oh… no.

Entourage: The show with a title its four lead characters probably couldn’t even pronounce. (Then again, they did figure out how to say “Medellin”, so who knows.)

The hit HBO series wrapped up four years ago, but because the Internet is like Ed Harris in The Abyss, refusing to let anything die, it’s back, only this time on the big screen. Little has changed though. A bro by any other name...

For the uninitiated, the show followed up-and-coming actor Vincent Chase (played, ironically, by perpetually-stalled actor Adrien Grenier) and his hangers-on as they navigated the Los Angeles film industry.

Vinny’s crew included tiny manager E (Kevin Connolly), rotund driver Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) and half-brother/half-actor Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon). His furious agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) spent the series trying to make miracles happen, yet none could match the miracle of hair re-growth Piven achieved over the show’s eight season run.

At its best, the program smartly satirised the Hollywood sausage-making factory, with the assistance of countless actors who willingly skewered their personas by playing twisted versions of themselves. Nothing on television could make 20 minutes disappear like Entourage did in its prime.

In later seasons, producer Mark Wahlberg and show-runner Doug Ellin refused to move the needle for Vinny Chase - or anyone for that matter - and though it was fun to watch attractive people drive nice cars and buy sneakers, the glacial narrative pace became frustrating.

(It also became a lot harder to justify the persistent misogyny as the satire of vacuous celebrity culture was gradually toned down in favour of more bro-ppreciation.)

So, why would we possibly need a movie, you ask? Well, not having any stories to tell never stopped the Entourage crew before. Spurred on by Wahlberg and the largely-unemployed main cast, Entourage the motion picture has arrived. Does it honour the source material? Sure does. Once again, nothing happens, just for longer.

The feature picks up where the show signed off, with a newly-divorced Vince being recruited by newly-anointed studio head Ari for his first big tentpole: something called Hyde that looks awful, as all faux-Entourage productions did. Here’s the crinkle: Vinny wants to direct it.

If you think the plot would then follow our hero as he slides down the “troubled auteur” rabbit hole, becoming immersed in a disastrous shoot, you have more of an imagination than writer-director Ellin.

Rather, we cut to eight months later, with the film in the can. Huh.

The tension instead comes from Vince and E needing $15 million more to wrap up the editing process, and Ari having to go hat in hand to their cowboy investors (played by unlikely father and son pair Billy Bob Thornton and Haley Joel Osment). An uneventful week passes. The gang throws a party. E considers his future with Sloan (Emmanuelle Chriqui), again. Turtle romances real-life UFC star Ronda Rousey. Johnny Drama has to suffer the indignity of competing for C-grade roles with Chad Lowe and David Faustino. Gary Busey pops up. Vince is a non-entity. This is Entourage as you’ve always known it.

Except, it’s not. The main quartet don’t get up to anything particularly raunchy or ribald. You might even be tempted to call them tame these days. Without the dopamine-rush we used to get watching the guys explore the furthest reaches of excess, it’s far harder to forgive the snooze-inducing plotline.

There’s plenty more to nitpick: Ellin’s limp direction and limper screenplay; the underwhelming list of cameo appearances, which crescendos with Kelsey Grammer; the unfathomable-in-any-plane-of-reality twist that Vinny Chase is actually a brilliant filmmaker, on which the entire flick hinges.

There’s even, shockingly, stuff to compliment, specifically, the performances of Dillon and Piven, who were sympathetic standouts on the show and remain as much here.

However, any review of the Entourage movie should recognise the benefit of not outstaying a welcome.

2/5

In cinemas now. Rated MA15+ for strong sex scenes and coarse language.