Most comedy fans know the overall story of Wet Hot American Summer and its rise to cult classic status: A hyper-specific genre parody made on a relative shoestring, debuted at Sundance, packed with now-familiar faces, limited-released to box office obscurity and mixed reviews, eventually reclaimed as maybe the funniest broad comedy of the 21st century. The reason that particular story has become so well-known is its relative rarity. There are a lot of indie comedies packed with familiar faces that aren’t as good as Wet Hot American Summer, movies that deservedly languish in obscurity. This century (and now, the streaming world) is littered with fans-only curios like The Wendell Baker Story, First Time Female Director, A.C.O.D, and dozens of others.
So it would be understandable if any excitement over a Sundance-approved low-budget comedy starring Donald Glover and Aubrey Plaza, and also featuring Ellie Kemper, Matt Walsh (the good one), Bobby Moynihan, Ben Schwartz, and Lutz from 30 Rock — basically an evening’s worth of stars from NBC’s late-2000s Thursday comedy lineup — was mitigated by extreme skepticism. But Mystery Team, now on a special-edition Blu-ray a full 17 years after its Sundance debut, is a comic obscurity that deserves your attention.
If Wet Hot American Summer’s target of late ’70s and early ’80s summer-camp comedies is unusually precise for a spoof, Mystery Team goofs on something equally obtuse and potentially less cinematic: old book series about kid detectives (think Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, or Encyclopedia Brown). Strangely, the kid-detective idea has proved a fertile one for several 21st century movies. Rian Johnson’s Brick turns it into a genuinely hard-edged noir, replete with ’40s-style slang, while the Adam Brody vehicle The Kid Detective follows its titular character into grown-up ennui. Mystery Team goes broader than either of those, joining Jason (Donald Glover), Duncan (DC Pierson), and Charlie (Dominic Dierkes) as teenagers on the cusp of high school graduation but still attached to their self-images as a master of disguise, a boy genius, and the strongest kid in town, respectively.
None of those distinctions remain true for their borderline-adult selves. Duncan recites facts from an outdated trivia book, and Charlie’s muscle tone has failed to develop. (He’s also, generously, the least skillful detective of the three.) Jason comes closest to matching his fantasy — not because he’s genuinely good at disguises, but by sheer force of will. He dons his ridiculous fake mustaches and barges into situations before anyone can object to the fakeness. The screenplay (by the three stars, director Dan Eckman, and producer Meggie McFadden) suggests that, even in their prime, these guys weren’t genuine prodigies — just some once-likable kids humored by their small town as they solved “cases” about missing pies or errant milk money.
Making the trio genuinely pathetic and almost impossibly arrested in their development is an extreme characterization more akin to sketch comedy than film, so it’s no surprise the movie springs from Derrick Comedy, the sketch troupe formed by Glover, Pierson, Dierkes, Eckman, and McFadden during their NYU days. The group had some hits on early YouTube, and there are elements of Mystery Team that probably would have felt at home on that platform. (For example, the group seems unduly obsessed with old-timey hobos; at one point Jason dons a painted-on beard, top hat, and bindle to question an unhoused person.) For anyone not on the movie’s wavelength, it will feel like a comedy sketch extended endlessly, complete with awkward pauses where a live audience’s laughter might go.
Those who do vibe with Mystery Team, however, won’t notice many empty spaces, even at home. Minute for minute, it’s one of the funniest comedies of its era. The plot is fueled by Jason’s desire to prove the group’s mettle by solving a grim double murder in the middle of their small town. (Aubrey Plaza plays the daughter of the victims.) The filmmakers ride the line between cartoon silliness and real-world grit with much more skill than their characters. They’re equally comfortable goofing on the milieu of kid-centric mysteries (there’s a running gag where the team perpetually blames every crime on their childhood nemesis “Old Man McGinty,” despite him being genuinely infirm) as they are embracing an R-rated sensibility, like when the non-drinking, non-swearing, non-girl-kissing team infiltrates a strip club. Rather than wearing its sketch premise thin, the film’s commitment to this bit is full-blooded and ridiculous.
As a mystery, the movie shows its low-budget roots. The murder story is actually a pretty decent townie noir, but the way various clues come together is often slapdash, and not as a gag; sometimes the actual blocking of specific actions looks fudged. But like Brick, Mystery Team uses its juxtaposition of genre elements and the end of childhood to evoke a feeling of disorientation over the darkness and cruelty of the “real” world. Though the film’s approach to this material is obviously outsized and comedy-focused, it does carry a warped poignancy alongside its jokes about these guys being terribly behind in their development. (“He blew into my mouth,” Plaza’s character says to herself with staggered confusion after sharing her first kiss with Jason.) Like 2008’s Step Brothers, it functions as a sly critique of a then-common storyline in comedy: a belated coming-of-age where twentysomethings still act like teenagers. But here, the characters will have to mature just to get to the level of dumb teens.
Mystery Team also captures a moment in the pre-Community career of Glover, then a writer on 30 Rock. Community premiered later in 2009, and this was his first movie ever. Following his departure from the sitcom world, Glover has taken a more serious, thoughtful tone in his on-screen roles, as well as through his music. Through that maturity, he’s maintained a foothold in nerd culture through appearances in Star Wars and Marvel movies, but there’s something unabashedly youthful and genuinely geeky about seeing him mug his way through a broad comedy, with a Jim Carrey-ish physicality that sells the appropriately Ace Ventura-ish contortions of Jason’s plans.
Admittedly, Mystery Team isn’t quite on the Wet Hot American Summer level, and it’s certainly not universally acknowledged as a classic. It’s good enough, however, to fuel your hopes for the next 10 or 20 indie comedies you encounter — in other words, perfectly matched for childlike hope giving way to adult-world disappointment.
A new edition of Mystery Team is on Blu-ray now from Lionsgate. It’s also streaming free with ads on Prime Video, Tubi, Plex, Fawesome, and Fandango at Home.
