“…plays out like a long Saturday Night Live skit…”

Last night I watched 7 Days in Hell and I had a hard time deciding wether or not I wanted to review it. For those who don’t know, 7 Days in Hell is a “documentary” about the worlds longest tennis match that took place over the course of 7 days. The movie stars Andy Samberg and Kit Harington as Aaron Williams and Charles Poole (the two tennis players) respectively. The film is set up as a look back on this world changing event with many “experts” being interviewed to provide their insight.

The reason I debated ether or not to review 7 Days in Hell is because it is really short. Because of this, the structuring isn’t exactly what you you would expect when it comes to a regular movie. The best way for me to explain it would be to compare it to an episode of ESPN 30 for 30. If you have ever watched an episode of 30 for 30 (or really any other sports documentary television show) the structure doesn’t offer much depth to the storyline. For that people usually rely on biopics and things of that sort to delve into the “characters” feelings and thoughts. 7 Days in Hell does a better job than most sports documentaries because it does set up the characters a little more clearly, of course this is because the characters are entirely fictional. But anyway, I have decided to review 7 Days in Hell (of course, because otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this) so let’s get into it.

So now that you know my stance on the structuring know that I’m not going to talk much about the story because it did it’s job. The story of 7 Days in Hell provided as the backdrop to introduce these outrageous characters and scenarios. 7 Days in Hell is not unlike a skit you would find on Saturday Night Live. It has cameos up to its ears, it’s funny (most of the time), and the production value isn’t anything to write home about. The one word I would use to describe the comedy in 7 Days in Hell is ‘bizarre’. The movie often goes off on tangents to fit in jokes that have very little to do with the “story”, and because of their random nature they are either funny or they fall completely flat. Fortunately I found myself laughing more often than I was checking my watch. The acting in 7 Days in Hell is pretty good, keeping in mind that 90 percent of actors hail from Saturday Night Live. One thing that took me out of the film was them deciding to cast the Queen. Maybe it is just because I’m from Canada and I see the Queen literally every day (not personally, she is on our money), but as soon as I saw someone portraying the queen I snapped back to reality. Again, this isn’t a big deal because this movie is essentially a long Saturday Night Live skit, I just thought I would throw that out there. The low budget that I mentioned before shows when you look at the CG of the movie (yes, there was CG but it’s not what you think). The crowds were obviously like 5 people cut and pasted, and the tennis ball often looked absolutely terrible. But again, these things don’t really matter do they?

I guess one of the main reasons that I was reluctant to review 7 Days in Hell was because none of what I said matters. The movie wasn’t made to be a biting commentary, or even a good movie for that matter, it was made to be funny. Of course, comedy is subjective and when it comes to comedy things like acting choices and CG don’t make any difference. All I can say is that if you like the skits that Saturday Night Live produces, then chances are you will like this movie.

Overall 7 Days in Hell plays out like a long Saturday Night Live skit; It’s full of bizarre, random comedy and a shit load of cameos.

I give 7 Days in Hell a B