Free Lunch Express

Plot

From the creators who watched Airplane too many times, comes the surreal story of Bernie Sanders. This farcical tale takes us from childhood to political icon with battles against the Clintons, drinks with AOC and weed with Ben and Jerry along the way.

Cast

Made by COVID denier Lenny Britton, a man without a successful credit to his name and starring such bottom of the barrel actors like Kevin Sorbo and Eric Roberts.

Verdict

I titled this review "What's wrong with you?" and I mean that two-fold. It's aimed at the creators and anyone who would support this production and find it even remotely entertaining.

For a start I don't understand how this is even legal? How were they not sued into oblivion? Even using a likeness of an individual is risky these days, so how do you do an entire biopic about someone? And one so bias, hateful, dishonest and absurd without legal ramifications?

The movie is unfunny, it's an 80 minute piece of propaganda and done in the worst possible taste. This is not entertainment.

Rants

The most frustrating thing here is the dishonesty, it's like I always say if a person/minority is so bad why do you have to lie to turn the people against them? Tell the truth, that'll do it right? Unless you know, they're not bad and you're the problem. I'm not a "Bernie Bro" by any means but this makes him out to be something he's clearly not and made by the same people who throw around words like woke, socialist, communist etc with no grasp on what they actually mean.

Breakdown

Unfunny In poor taste Just stupid on so many levels.

...but it just doesn't know when to stop milking the gags. I get the feeling that this one was made by people who hate Bernie Sanders too much to recognize anything that is actually funny about him. It seems to focus too hard on being negative. Shame. They could have had something here.

As an attempted satire, this is definitely so bad it's good -- or perhaps a primo drinking game (but stick with light or American beer for health reasons). It is so incompetent, so dishonest, so transparently revealing of its biases, it provokes more guffawing and snorting than offense. The appearance of Hillary Clinton is a highlight. Since the Washington Post published 16 negative stories on Sanders in 16 hours (in 2016), this sort of thing seems like softball.

Not only is the movie desperately trying to force a laugh with crude (yet boringly tame) sex jokes and gay jokes I've seen done better even in Adam Sandler flops, its caricature of Bernie is very clearly and openly antisemitic in a way no one could ever find actually funny. Even if you agree with the incredibly slanted politics of this movie, please don't subject yourself to it.

Besides the mild antisemitism and homophobia contained in the film, the writing is truly abysmal with painfully untrue caricatures of prominent political figures played up for laughs until you realize: there's no joke. AOC has a Mexican accent? So funny except for the part where you realize Cortez doesn't have anything but a New York lilt to her voice in real life, and I doubt her district would care if she did have a Mexican accent. Same thing with Ben and Jerry being gay: nobody would care! The sexual comedy is cheap and the events they center around are blatantly false. And I am OKAY with a biopic taking creative liberties, especially if it is satirical! But, when your movie is almost entirely creating false scenarios to deliver bad punchlines, you have to step back and consider it for a second. And then after consideration, throw the script in the trash. Seriously though, this film doesn't even follow the framework of Bernie's life.

Also, while I'm sure the budget was not extensive (it's very obvious) and the expertise of the crew was vastly limited, especially if this was filmed in 2020, the movie does an extremely poor job of creating ambiance. I never for a second got the impression that any scene was supposed to take place in the past. It's just a bunch of characters pantomiming historic costume, speech, and ideas. It's like going to a Civil War recreation in a Costco parking lot.

My one good note: I liked the narrator! He was funny! Sadly, not a valid reason to pick up this sorry excuse of a film.