Jay and Mark Duplass made their mark in the film world by making very low budget, largely improvised films that focused on getting to the heart of everyday characters much more than they did on telling a grand story. With their last two films, Cyrus and Jeff Who Lives at Home, they’ve branched out a bit, hiring actors with bigger names and working with increased budgets, but largely they’ve stayed true to the heart of what made them famous; small movies about ordinary people. And seeing as The Do-Deca-Pentathlon was filmed before their two most recent releases, it should come as no surprise that it stays especially true to the heart of what the Duplassi are known for. The story here is of two brothers (Steve Zissis and Mark Kelly) who fiercely competed against each other when they were young, so much so that they eventually devised their own official series of games, The Do-Deca-Pentathlon, to decide who was better. The games ended in controversy, and the brothers have been at odds ever since. Reunited now as adults, they decide that the games must be replayed, and a victor must be declared once and for all.
The Do-Deca-Pentathlon is very unashamedly a small film, and that gives it some charms, but it also comes with pitfalls. The biggest is that, without the star presences that Cyrus and Jeff Who Lives at Home enjoyed, a premise this broadly comedic, done on such a small scale, feels like a too-long episode of some TV show that’s ripping off The Office. Sure, Do-Deca is funny, but is it so funny that you would want to pay to see it in a movie theater? Also, it’s felt like the brothers have been learning more about and paying more attention to the photography of their films with each they’ve made, so putting out something that they shot several years ago looks like a step backwards. The Do-Deca-Pentathlon is full of annoying faux-documentary zooms and fly by the seat of your pants cinematography, and while that was excusable for a couple of young guys who were making self-financed films ten years ago, here it betrays the development they’ve made as craftsmen.
The movie mostly succeeds, however, because both Zissis and Kelly are likable and funny, and they create a tense but easy chemistry whenever they share the screen together. Jennifer Lafleur (who plays the Zissis character’s wife) is also worth mentioning, because she improves a melodramatic nag of a character by giving her a few emotional moments that went fairly big and ended up hitting the mark. And perhaps that answers the question of why you might want to pay to see this in a theater: Do-Deca has several standout moments that feel like genuine catharses, and are probably more effective than anything you’ve seen in even the funniest TV sitcoms. Keep a look out for the scenes where Zissis gets so frustrated that he just starts dunking basketballs while everyone looks on horrified, or the frank discussion he has with his wife about being a fat ass; both were great and probably saved this one from being disposable.
