Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show

In August 2005, actor Vince Vaughn took four unknown stand-up comics—Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst and Sebastian Maniscalco—on a meandering tour of the Southwest, South and Midwest. There’s a reason this lackluster documentary of the tour (directed by Ari Sandel) has languished on the shelf since its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2006; and, unfortunately, there’s a reason these four comics are still as unknown as they were in 2005. They’re not bad, just nothing special (the performance clips do get a bit funnier as the tour wears on); and the insights we get into their work, from Sandel’s footage backstage and on the tour bus, are banal and superficial. Jon Favreau and Dwight Yoakam make guest appearances while the tour is still bouncing around Southern California.