Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show

A surprisingly moving, often hilarious account of five men on the road -- four talented comedians and a movie star.

When the Wild West show ends in Chicago, neither the comedians, nor the movie audience is ready to get off the tour bus.

The film offers a very funny, insightful look at the process of putting on a live comedy performance, from the logistical demands to the creative ones.

The concept -- reintroducing stand-up to a country that grew indifferent to it in the 1990s -- is a winner.

This modest, meandering, occasionally moving documentary is a pleasant surprise.

An amalgam of comedy concert and tour documentary, Vaughn's ambitious dream project offers more than just a look at four budding stand-up comics, but a look at our country from a very unique perspective as well.

What begins as an entertaining film journal of Vince Vaughn yukking it up during his comedy tour ends up as an uproarious showcase for two of the four unknown comics who crisscrossed the country with everyone’s favorite Wedding Crasher.

Few movies begin as inauspiciously or end so satisfactorily as Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show.

The title may be unwieldy, but this engaging documentary is briskly funny.

The documentary was edited from 600 hours of footage and there's barely a slick minute in it. The laughs feel loose-limbed, off-the-cuff and defiantly un-Hollywood.

Anyone who's ever had even a fleeting thought about what it might be like to be a not-yet-famous stand-up comic needs to run, not walk, to the movie house.

Director Ari Sandel paces the film well, wisely using material from the crew's detour because of Hurricane Rita as a diversion, without resorting to melodrama.

Students of the art will be interested in the commentary the performers provide.

The stage stuff is funny: Vaughn is an affable host whose schmaltzy Swingers-era Brat Pack shtick still serves him well.

While not overtly done, the entire movie explores what America is laughing about at this point in time -- and what people in the heartland don't find funny. Either way, it is illuminating.

Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show has a loosey-goosey, what-the-hell spirit that's easy and fun to hook into.

Though you might expect a film of a bunch of performers on a bus to explode with camaraderie and high jinks, the Wild West Comedy Show offers only standard patter about how hard it is for four dudes to share a bathroom.

Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show is a better documentary than it is a comedy concert film.

Wild West focuses equally on the comedians' stand-up routines, which range from meh to flat-out hilarious, and their views of themselves and their comedy.

More a visual scrapbook than a documentary or concert film, Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show is an affectionate memento of a 2005 barnstorming bus tour throughout the nation's midsection.

Each of the comedians has a personality that can be summarized in a few words.

Vaughn could have used an editor, but Wild West still is a romp with a likable bunch.

It never overcomes the sense that the movie was, like the actual tour, not particularly necessary or significant.

If only the jokes were as plentiful as the camaraderie.

This documentary is essentially a feature-length infomercial for four up-and-coming stand-up comics -- Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst and Sebastian Maniscalco.

Each of the comics is fairly funny, though only John Caparulo, who specializes in foul-mouthed blue-collar material, stands out as better than standard cable TV fare.

Wild West Comedy Show is a jocular tour documentary that gets more mileage out of the bus ride than the jokes.

All the backstage commentary and tour-bus footage just gets in the way of the laughs, which is why Wild West is a lot less entertaining than a straight-ahead concert film, such as Blue Collar Comedy Tour.

In this labour-of-love tour documentary, Vince Vaughn displays far more courage than the average movie star.

It's less irritating than Jerry Seinfeld's ego-driven Comedian, but Vaughn's mild condescension to "the heartland" is palpable.

It doesn't help that the footage feels dated (the show runs into Hurricane Katrina along the way). Or that Vaughn is nowhere near as hot now as he was back then.

The movie attempts to shed light on the hardships of being a comedian but does more to confirm that jokes that aren't terribly funny in person are even less so on the big screen.

Ahmed Ahmed, an Egyptian born California comic who riffs on ethnic stereotypes, seems like a nice guy, and his jokes about profiling have a sardonic sting to them.

Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show doesn't strive to be more than what it is: a modest portrait of guys struggling to make a name for themselves in a tough business.

At least the comedians showcased here are consistent: They're as unfunny offstage as on.

Apart from Ahmed’s riffs on the difficulties of being Arab in post-9/11 America, there’s exactly zero controversy of any kind, which is a shame.

The comedians have different styles, but none looks like the undiscovered genius that Vaughn thinks they all are.

An obnoxious effort more interested in self-congratulation than in showcasing its featured young comics, Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - From Hollywood to the Heartland is as awkward as its name.

The performers seem to be passable comics, the kind you'd see doing the middle act at your local chuckle hut.

A 2 1/2-year-old collection of mediocre stand-up routines and dull backstage chatter, Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show demonstrates why comedy clubs require you to have a couple of drinks.

Even if you're a Vaughn fan, you'll have more fun watching him promote Wild West on talk shows than watching the film itself.