Movie Review – Entourage

In July of 2004 HBO released a new comedy-drama series that was loosely based on actor Mark Wahlberg’s experiences when arriving in Hollywood as an up and coming actor. The creator of this eventual hit masterpiece was Doug Ellin who also handled much of the writing as well as the fair share of directing. It was probably an unexpected, yet very welcome surprise that Entourage was able to stay as popular as it did over its eight season run. As it turns out though, the last chapter of Vince Chase and his group of pals isn’t quite finished yet. They may be done with their slapstick ways on television but there’s still a whole big world of theaters that are itching to introduce this gang of gigglers to an entirely new fanbase.

Vince (Adrian Grenier) has had a very successful career of late as a big time actor. So much so, that he decides he needs a new challenge. Coming off of a failed marriage that lasted only a whopping total of nine days, Vince is ready to move his professional career to the next level: directing. Enter Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) who was once a very successful agent to the stars, including Vince, and is now a studio head for one of the big players. Ari allows Vince to direct his first movie and of course there’s no way that Vince would do this without his Entourage involved. With the boys together again it can only mean crazy times ahead for Vince, Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon), Eric (Kevin Connolly) and Turtle (Jerry Ferrara).

Staying true to the Entourage television series there are more cameos than one can shake a stick at. The acting credits at the end of the movie are longer than the legal jargon fine print that accompany most drug commercials. Watching the stars appear out of nowhere so often is probably the equivalent of hanging out at The Grove in L.A. during Oscar weekend. It’s unreal. On the downside, with so many famous faces we’re only treated to very small sample size of these awesome talents. The upside is that they all pretty much do something that will make you remember seeing them in the movie.

If you’re like me and have never seen even one episode of the highly acclaimed cable series, fear not, you too can enjoy the Entourage movie. In a brilliant move, Doug Ellin tells a story that stands on its own where there is no prerequisite to having watched any of the HBO’s successful series. Having said that, obviously dedicated fans who have indeed invested the time in watching the aforementioned series will get a little more pleasure out of the full length movie. Either way Entourage is chock-full of hilarious scenes one after another and should bring smiles to even the most stoic of movie-goers. High marks are well deserved, if for no other reason than the fact that we can all laugh at the ridiculousness of Hollywood as well as relate to it on some level.