‘On the Count of Three’ Review: Jerrod Carmichael’s Lively Buddy Comedy of Despair

Jerrod Carmichael's directorial debut On the Count of Three has gone to Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures for North America. Carmichael and Christopher Abbott star as two best friends as they try to carry out a pact to end their lives before the day ends.

Also Read: 'On the Count of Three' Review: Jerrod Carmichael's Directorial Debut Is a Matter of Life and DeathThe film earned some strong reviews out of Sundance as a dark comedy that doesn’t forget its grimly serious subject matter.

EXCLUSIVE: In a deal north of $2 million, Annapurna Pictures has acquired North American rights to On The Count of Three, the 2021 Sundance buzz title that marks the directorial debut of standup comedian Jerrod Carmichael.  Pic is expected to be released through Annapurna’s distribution pact with MGM’s Orion Pictures.

Lily Gladstone, the breakout star of Kelly Reichardt‘s 2016 indie “Certain Women,” has been cast alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming $200-million drama, “Killers of The Flower Moon.” Based on the David Grann book of the same name and adapted by Eric Roth (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”), the crime drama centers on members of the Indigenous American Osage tribe in the United States who are murdered under mysterious circumstances in the 1920s, sparking a major F.B.I.

Lily Gladstone is set to star in Apple Original Films’ Killers of the Flower Moon. Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro are also attached to star in the pic with Martin Scorsese directing. The movie is based on David Grann’s highly praised best-seller and set in 1920s Oklahoma, Killers of the Flower Moon depicts the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the Reign of Terror.

“They’re not normal people!”He’s right, of course — they’re not normal people. But they are fun to be around, in an exasperating kind of way.“French Exit” was directed by Azazel Jacobs (“Momma’s Man,” “The Lovers”) and adapted by Patrick deWitt from his 2018 novel.

As a child, Mendel explored the nearby forests of Michoacán, a state in Mexico, with his older brother Vicente. The trees there are filled with massive, beautiful clusters of monarch butterflies.

Tomris Laffly “Active Shooter at 12! Hostage negotiation at 1:30! Drug raid at 2:30,” hollers an authoritative voice in a sun-baked concrete yard. The retired police officer who announces this schedule at the start of “At the Ready,” Maisie Crow’s sobering documentary about a community of kids growing up on the Mexican border, isn’t at a professional police school or military facility.

Officially a production of the Covid era—the end credits include such novel crew positions as “Covid compliance officer” and “Covid p.a.”—On the Count of Three plays like a despairing, vaguely comedic twist on more than half-century-old race relations films such as The Defiant Ones and In the Heat of the Night, in which circumstances forced white and black characters to collaborate against their wills.

In his stand-up sets, Jerrod Carmichael often takes a position he knows won't be popular with listeners and seems to dare them to doubt his sincerity. Low-key, matter-of-fact, he shows impressive comfort with the prospect of disapproval; maybe knowing you have more charisma than you need makes it easier to be unsympathetic.

Two men, one white and one black, point guns at each other in a 10 am standoff outside of a strip club. To viewers, it might come as a surprise, but the pair are childhood best friends.

Also Read: Jerrod Carmichael Signs Overall Exclusive Deal With 20th Century FoxWhile the day has its share of cathartic encounters — comics JB Smoove and “Carmichael Show” co-star Tiffany Haddish get dramatic moments as, respectively, Val’s abusive father and Val’s fed-up girlfriend — it also allows the friends one last chance to bond, reminisce, and pursue previous adolescent obsessions (dirt biking) and new ones (Kevin’s never used a handgun before, and he’s surprised at how much he likes it).

Lisa Kennedy A nice-enough young man kills a nice boy. One is Mexican, the other white.

Border tensions are boiled down to two families in “ No Man’s Land,” an uneven independent thriller with some redeeming qualities. Its heart, and homages to classic Westerns, are in the right place even if the work as a whole is neither as impactful nor epic as the filmmakers were striving for.The film sets up two families on either side of the border.