There's something fishy going on down at the sardine factory!
I am exactly the demographic and disposition that Derrick Comedy, the late 2000s Internet sketch comedy group, was built for. In high school and college, I devoured their YouTube skits like they were gospel, rewatching them to where I could probably recite “Girls Are Not To Be Trusted” (”By Kevin!”) from memory. The group, made up of NYU students Dominic Dierkes, DC Pierson, Dan Eckman, and some guy named Donald Glover (whatever happened to him?), was immensely formative on my high school and college sense of humor. Their jokes had a pleasing blend of absurdism and crassness, with just enough messiness around the edges to feel like something my friends and I could’ve made if we were a lot funnier and edgier. (It inspired us to film our own borderline unwatchable sketches that I still hold dear for nostalgia reasons despite their nonsense.)
Derrick Comedy’s skits straddled the line between razor-sharp and sophomoric, often both at once. The crown jewels were the ones where Glover went all in on humiliating himself in front of a camera, mugging and morphing with chaos: “Spelling Bee” saw Glover mimicking Jacques Bailly’s silky voice to ask contestants to spell a mega-slur; “Jerry” gave him a post-pants-pooping meltdown for the ages; and “Mafia,” showed him misunderstanding a mob boss’s accusation. My favorite by the group, though, was actually a Glover-free skit called “Daughters,” a surreal spoof of the TV show 24 constantly putting Jack Bauer’s daughter in danger. Some jokes haven’t aged tastefully (see: “Spelling Bee” and “Bro Rape”), but the confidence and clarity of their comic voice was undeniable.
So when they announced they were making a movie — an actual movie, longer than 4 minutes, with a beginning, middle, and end — it felt like a seismic moment, at least in the corner of the internet I frequented. Mystery Team was their leap into long-form storytelling, a low-budget feature shot in New Hampshire. Derrick Comedy recruited talent (and funds) through their members’ association with the New York improv group Upright Citizens Brigade, which was really having a moment in the mid-2000s through early-2010s. The film wears its sketch roots proudly, but attempts to thread them together into something narrative-driven and, occasionally, sincere. It’s also a time capsule of UCB comedy’s peak cultural moment. Sitcoms’ depth charts loaded up on the group’s alumni for the next decade, which explains the flood of familiar faces: Aubrey Plaza, Ellie Kemper, Bobby Moynihan, Ben Schwartz, and Matt Walsh all pop up before they were recognizable names.
The premise is a great vessel for the group’s brand of arrested development humor. The titular Mystery Team — made up of the master of disguise Jason (Donald Glover), the boy genius Duncan (DC Pierson), and the strongest kid in town Charlie (Dominic Dierkes) — are self-appointed boy detectives who never grew up even as the world around them did. Think Encyclopedia Brown in a Superbad-esque high school who universally bully and belittle the detectives. The trio still prowl their suburban neighborhood, solving petty mysteries like missing pies and stolen homework, despite being only a few weeks away from graduation. They are blissfully out of sync with the adult world.
A big case comes their way, this one bigger than the rest they’ve solved: a double homicide mystery brought by a little girl, kicking the film’s plot into motion. The Mystery Team, with no self-awareness but surprisingly good instincts, dive headlong into a noir-lite investigation involving strippers, drug dealers, toxic chemicals, and corporate cover-ups. The tension hinges on how wildly outmatched the group is by the grimy reality of the mystery they’re chasing. But that dissonance is also where the film finds most of its humor: Every scene feels like a battle between a zany skit and an R-rated crime flick.
The pace of jokes is electric. The script is a relentless barrage of gags, one-liners, and escalating absurdities, some of which are brilliant in their construction. Mystery Team’s best sequences use the classic “rule of three” to great effect: a joke lands, then returns in slightly more intense iteration, then barrels into full-on silliness in the final payoff (Moynihan offering Glover an ice cream sandwich comes to mind). The film makes the most of its shoestring budget, too, with a variety of settings and hysterical costumes (though they’re Halloween Spirit-esque).
Not everything in the comedy clicks for me. The gross-out humor has always been my least favorite aspect of Derrick Comedy’s arsenal, even more than the transgressive humor. Too much of Mystery Team leans on bodily fluid-induced nausea in the audience — pee, poop, puke, etc. It’s jarringly discordant from the actual wit in the rest of the film’s comedy. (A dirty toilet gag surpasses even The Worst Toilet in Scotland in grossness.)
The performances are the glue holding the chaos together. Glover, even in this early outing, is a star and a comic whirlwind. He throws himself into ridiculous situations and personas with total commitment, and his ability to pivot into the “real” movie stuff — introspection, character conflict — allows Jason to function as a more human character than you might otherwise expect from a college sketch comedy group. Pierson and Dierkes are solidly funny as the team’s weariest member and its dopey third wheel, respectively, each getting their moments to shine. Pierson, in particular, conveys some proper moments of emotion. Aubrey Plaza brings her now-signature deadpan timing to her straight-woman role, and it’s a kick to see other future stars bumming around. (Schwartz playing a tough guy at the strip club is definitely a different look for the actor.)
Given its low origins and sketch-comedy DNA, the film’s visual competence is actually remarkable. Director Dan Eckman doesn’t try anything flashy, but the movie is clear, well-paced, and never suffers from sketch-itis of 3-to-5-minute blocks of story and humor. That’s more than you can say for other projects of its ilk. It’s kind of a shame Eckman didn’t end up directing more features — he clearly knew how to pull off a low-budget charmer without it looking like a group project from film school.
There is one last provocative element to Mystery Team: it is a strangely elegiac and introspective story. The conflict is, at its core, about a group of friends confronting the inevitable end of their childhood and their collective project. The film mirrors its own purpose. This was the final act of Derrick Comedy, a group of friends making one last big, stupid, joyful thing before splitting off into their adult lives. That subtext sneaks in under the jokes, especially in the film’s third act, which suggests that growing up doesn’t mean giving up your youthful dreams entirely, even if it does mean saying goodbye to a part of yourself. Maybe it’s just the haze of my own late-2000s memories, but there’s melancholy lurking here. I honestly think the movie could have gone even harder on this theme; though I am, admittedly, a sap.
Mystery Team is undeniably rough in spots. Some of the shock humor hasn’t aged well, and as well developed as the narrative is, it still occasionally serves as a mere scaffolding for bits. But it’s also hilarious and brimming with the talent and energy of my favorite early-internet comedy troupe. If you’re allergic to silliness and mid-aughts indie energy and some naughtiness, Mystery Team might drive you nuts. But if you, like me, once spent your evenings refreshing Derrick Comedy’s YouTube page hoping for a new upload, this film feels like coming home.
Is It Good?
Good (5/8)
Dan is the founder and head critic of The Goods. Follow Dan on Letterboxd. Join the Discord for updates and discussion.