Rolling Loud: The Movie Review: Owen Wilson’s comedy is better than this

Ketchup Entertainment is the name on everyone’s lips in the industry these days. A small media company resurrected the Looney Tunes movie Coyote vs. Acme Warner Bros. turned it into a $110 million success after tax deductions. He is the first film to be distributed in North America Coyote vs. Acme, Rolling Loud: The Movie More eyes than ever fall on ketchup at the time. While there is hardly any film that can withstand that pressure, this brand of exercise in comedy guise is certainly not up to the challenge.

Rolling loudIt was written and directed by Jeremy Garelick (Netflix Murder Mystery 2), takes place at the real-life hip hop festival of the same name. It follows a furniture salesman (Owen Wilson) who tells his wife (Jolene) he’s taking his 13-year-old son (Christian Convery) to his grandfather’s cabin, but secretly takes him to Rolling Loud. He loses his son almost immediately, and his frantic efforts to find him – with the help of his Nepo Baby colleague (Matt Rife) and a deranged volunteer (Kristin Ko) – lead him on an epic adventure around the festival.

Rolling Loud is a feature-length commercial

A literal title feature Rolling Loud: The Movie And produced by Live Nation Productions, it’s obviously going to be an exercise in branding so far, but it’s honestly shocking at what level. While it makes minimal narrative sense that Wilson’s character explores every area of ​​the festival (if you don’t already have a strong sense of the stages, amenities, and other fun opportunities available at Rolling Loud, you sure do by the time the credits roll), the film essentially just stops several times to read brand copy.

The lackluster comedy here isn’t worth slogging through all the film’s deeply insensitive marketing ploys.

Poor Jolene has to navigate an impossible line where her character, who hasn’t heard Rolling Loud minutes before, has to name the exact hotel outside where the festival takes place. Meanwhile, the Owen Wilson film isn’t the only brand to replicate. Besides lavishing attention on the artists who agreed to guest star in the film (especially Travis Scott and Sexy Red), the amount of airplay that distribution app GoPuff gets during the third act is absolutely obscene.

Product placement and brand deals are often the only avenues that small films like Rolling loud Able to get off the ground these days, the lively comedy here isn’t worth slogging through all the film’s deeply insensitive marketing ploys.

Most of the scenes centered on Owen Wilson mistake confusion for comedy, mostly involving lots of characters talking at once, but he endlessly explains his purpose without changing his approach one iota. The editing is devastating, obliterating all the air between a group of actors’ deliberately paced, improvised-sounding line deliveries, so that these scenes simultaneously feel bewilderingly both too slow and too fast.

Rolling Loud is saved by its supporting cast

Wilson himself isn’t doing a bad job, and it’s not his fault that he’s playing a henpecked bore with only the illusion of a character arc, because the movie cares that his relationship with his wife is toxic in both directions.

Rolling loud It’s at its best when its supporting cast is given time to shine. This includes Christian Convery, who essentially disappears for a large part of the film, but does most of his scenes and gives real pathos to his interactions with his father (this is a significantly better film about fathers and sons than husbands and wives).

While I understand that Matt Rife’s comedy (which I personally know very little about) is divisive, he gives an excellent performance here. His character is obviously using the comedian’s carefree frat bro persona as a shield, but very poorly. The character is about 10% bro, 90% weak goofball, and Rife is a surprisingly earnest anchor to the film’s standout comedic moments and its more heartwarming scenes.

Christine Co, meanwhile, is more of a known performer on the small screen Great interior And DaveCommitted wholeheartedly to the wild card’s unusual role as simultaneously more capable and more risk-taking than either man. She and Raif ping off each other well and provide an edge to scenes that could otherwise just be saccharine and sappy.

Together, these actors do Rolling Loud: The Movie A more tolerable relationship than it would otherwise be. While it’s no comic masterpiece, it’s perfectly watchable, which is more than I can say about a lot of other comedies of 2026.

Rolling Loud: The Movie Now in theaters.