Busboys Review: David Spade and Theo Von’s Comedy Gets Lost in the Weeds
PLOT: A pair of idiot friends believe that if they become waiters, all of their problems will be solved. They aren’t entirely wrong, but they aren’t entirely right.
REVIEW: Walking into Busboys feels like witnessing a strange anomaly in the 2026 theatrical landscape. It’s incredibly rare to see an original comedy actually land a theatrical release these days, as most of them just get dumped onto streaming services and forgotten. We’ve seen the rise of YouTuber-led projects like Iron Lung successfully carve out a space for independent creators, but this film serves as a harsh reminder that a self-funded gamble doesn’t always pay off without the right creative architecture.
I went into this film without any bias. I knew it would be an absurd comedy and might be a little offensive, which I’m all for. This is a David Spade film after all. I’ve been a fan of his since watching him on SNL and seeing Tommy Boy in theaters for the first time. Hell, I even loved Dickie Roberts. As for Theo Von, all I know of him is from seeing some TikToks of his podcast pop up, that he used to be on The Challenge back in the day, and that he has a pretty big following. That’s it.
Spade was most certainly a hit-maker back in the day, but does his new theatrical film feel like a return to form of comedy we all loved? The movie follows Markie (David Spade) and Steef (Theo Von) as two middle-aged guys stuck in a cycle of random blue-collar work. After Markie has a bad night with girlfriend, the duo decides to make a trek to Mexico where they feel like they can start their lives over, but instead settle for Arizona. Their big goal is to become waiters since a waiter stole Markie’s girlfriend, but first have to start at the bottom as busboys. Oh, and they decide to become drug dealers, too. Look, the narrative is so disjointed that it feels like it’s jumping all over the place every three minutes. It’s a nonsensical journey that lacks any real internal logic, moving from one chaotic setup to the next without ever really explaining what these characters are actually trying to achieve.
Here’s the thing…It’s honestly hard to review a movie like this. It knows it’s stupid as fuck and it clearly wants to be offensive, so you can almost let the random plot and inhuman characters slide. But the plot is almost nonsensical and jumps all over the place. It begins as a disjointed look at two blue-collar friends who hop from job to job without any clear explanation. In one scene they’re working with sewage and in the next they’re working on cars, eventually leading them on a trek to Mexico to reinvent themselves as busboys. It isn’t just that the plot is chaotic, it’s that there’s no internal logic to anchor anything that happens.
Right from the opening, I knew I was in for an endurance test when Kid Rock’s “Cowboy” started playing without any context. They actually play ol’ Robert Richie not once, but twice before the movie is over…hell yeah, brother! It feels like they were probably tired of the way comedy, or the lack of it, is going these days and said “let’s make ’em like they used to.” Which to say, there’s nothing wrong with that at all. Bring it on. But just like classic Happy Madison form, we do get some other classic songs thrown in there.
Technically, the film suffers from a script that feels remarkably artificial. For a movie that reportedly cost 3 million from their own pockets and comes from creators with deep industry connections, the lack of basic craft is baffling. You’d think with the names these guys have in their contacts, someone would’ve stepped in to provide a much-needed polish to the screenplay.
The only thing keeping this production from a total collapse is David Spade. He remains the film’s singular professional anchor, using his veteran comedic timing to pull a few decent laughs out of a script that feels utterly hollow. He plays his role with a grounded sense of reality that unfortunately only makes the rest of the film look worse. Apart from Spade, everyone seems like they’ve either never been in a movie before or they’re trying their hardest to do a bad imitation of a Happy Madison movie from the 2000s, or even trying to make a Joe Dirt 3. They beat jokes, or rather what they think are jokes, to the ground until you’re just exhausted.
On the other side, you have Theo Von, who’s clearly struggling to find his footing. While he’s a naturally funny presence on his podcast, carrying a lead role in a feature film is a completely different discipline. Without a strong director to calibrate his performance, he ends up feeling like a guest who’s overstayed his welcome in a role that was clearly meant for someone with more experience.
Writing this review, I can already hear people shouting “it’s not supposed to be taken seriously” or “you just don’t have a sense of humor!” I love absurd and offensive comedy like the next, but if you’re going to throw a shit load of jokes at me, at least make them funny.
Here’s the bottom line: I can respect the courage it takes to bypass the studio system and bring a passion project to theaters. Having the balls to go independent is great, but it doesn’t matter how much heart you put into it if the final product is unwatchable. It feels like it should have been dumped on Crackle (is that still a thing?) like Joe Dirt 2. It’s a bold attempt to break the rules, but it leaves you wondering if this is actually the worst film of the year or even the worst comedy in a long time.
The post Busboys Review: David Spade and Theo Von’s Comedy Gets Lost in the Weeds appeared first on JoBlo.