MacGruber

MacGruber

The planet is in danger of destruction, Washington is in danger: the insane Dieter is about to blow up the White House with a stolen nuclear warhead. Armies and special services of all countries give up. Who will save the world? MacGruber of course! The former super agent, who left the hectic world for seclusion in one of the monasteries of Ecuador, again goes on the war path. A complete moron, MacGruber is the only and last hope of America, and of all mankind. Read more According to reliable sources: "The Russian convoy carrying X5 missiles was attacked. One of the missiles was transported to the territory of the United States and is in the hands of the insane Dieter, who threatens to turn Washington into a mountain of ashes." Who will save the world? The best of the best - super special agent MacGruber and a team of real heroes, 100 years of combat experience in all - are on the path of war. Their weapon is murderous intelligence. Their fuel is adrenaline. And they will save humanity, if, of course, they do not confuse the wires. Synopsis He is the only one. He is cooler than all American heroes. He is the owner of 16 Purple Heart medals, three Congressional Orders of Honor and seven presidential medals for bravery. He alone still wears a fishtail hairstyle. And he is proud of it. He is MacGruber (Will Forte). On the day when MacGruber's fiancee Casey was tragically killed by a group of bandits, he promised himself to put his life on the line to fight crime. For ten years he mercilessly fought against evil, but then he got tired and decided to retire. But it turned out that it was not yet time to rest. The country needs a hero again. The former boss calls McGruber to perform a very difficult task: the super agent must neutralize the insane Dieter (Val Kilmer), his old worst enemy, who has stolen a nuclear warhead and threatens to destroy Washington. McGruber understands that only he can handle such a task. Real pros come to his aid: Lieutenant Dixon Piper (Ryan Philip) and Vicky Elmo (Kristen Wiig). Of course, in the fight against crime, MacGruber uses, to put it mildly, non-trivial methods, but if you want the peace to be saved, you have to put up with it... Filmmaking A few years ago, a new character appeared in the most popular American TV show Saturday Night Live (SNL), the unlucky super agent MacGruber, who instantly fell in love with thousands of American viewers. McGruber gained such popularity that in February 2009 he became the "face" of national television advertising. "McGruber has always been a popular show character in America. And the advertisement with his participation was made for the Super Bowl and received a great response. That's when we decided to make a movie based on sketches from the TV show," says one of the creators of SNL, Lorna Michaels. Michaels joined forces with the show's co-producer John Goldwyn and producer Ryan Kavanagh, head of the Relativity studio, to develop a full-fledged movie project based on the show. The reason that prompted Michaels to take on the project is very simple - to make the audience laugh. "There is a certain type of film that pursue one single goal - to make people laugh. Our movie is exactly that." The script for "McGruber" was taken up by the performer of the role of super agent Will Forte and two of his friends who, together with Will, write scripts for SNL, Jorma Taccone and John Solomon. "When Lorny, choking with enthusiasm, told us about the idea of ​​a feature film about MacGruber, we thought: "God, this is a 60-second sketch that ends with the same thing every time same: with an explosion", - says Forte. - But then we decided: "We will be real fools if we don't think about it properly", and then different funny ideas started coming to our heads!" "McGruber is the same character," says Solomon. - By shooting a full-length movie, we made his image richer and brighter than on television. As soon as we started shooting a film in the "children under 16" category, we had a lot of new opportunities: we made the story tougher and added something "edgy" to it. The SNL show has 20 writers who write scripts for 45-50 sketches each week, of which only a dozen will be released in the weekly show on Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. Of course, a much smaller number of screenwriters worked on the script of "Super MacGruber". The whole process of creating the project took only six months - starting with the development of the concept and ending with filming. In the modern post-crisis world, where the shooting process sometimes stretches for years, making a movie in a short time is a great luck. Not only that, but the film was shot during breaks between SNL shows. Therefore, the team had to work very and very quickly, this group learned from many years of work on the SNL show. "It's always like this on our show: Monday you start with a clean slate, and on Saturday you're already on the air with a ready-made sketch," says Goldwyn. - There is no place for ordinary ideas in SNL, only the best ones win here. You have to think very quickly, inhibitions and slow thinking do not linger in the show. Goldwyn believes that the need for instant reactions motivates people to create unusual and interesting jokes. "If you think very quickly, then non-trivial ideas will be born in your head." Working on the script for "Super MacGruber", three friends paid tribute to their favorite action films of the 80s. "We are big fans of action films of the late 80s and early 90s, such as "The Nutcracker", "Lethal Weapon", "Rambo - 3". We strived to make our films in the same spirit solely out of love for those films," says director Jorma Taccone. Operatives and bandits: action comedy casting. "My movie character is as simple as the one in the show," says Will Forte. "McGruber thinks he has the right answers to all questions, although he is often deeply mistaken." This is how film director Jorma Taccone comments on Forte's work: "Will is just an amazing comedic actor! In every take, he gives 150 percent. He will work until he falls off his feet." As Forte says, it was with great difficulty that he managed to keep a serious face and concentrate on his role on the set, as there were so many pranksters around - Forte's colleagues on the SNL show, who tried to make the actor laugh. Kristin Wig was especially successful in this. A regular on SNL, the actress made her big screen debut in the Judd Apatow comedy A Little Pregnant. In SuperMcGruber, Wiig plays an agent with a raspy voice and an impressive right hook. For her heroine, Wiig chose a wig in the style of the 80s and the corresponding flashy makeup. The team of SNL stars was organically supplemented by Val Kilmer, Ryan Philip and Powers Booth. "Their characters organically complement the incredible MacGruber, unlike whom they are still more or less adequate," says Goldwyn. The producer tells how Val Kilmer and Ryan Philip got into the project: "We needed the right cast to start rehearsals. We had Forte, but on the day of the first reading, the casting agent had not yet chosen the rest of the actors. And then she had the idea to invite Ryan and Val to the picture. The actors accepted the invitation. Jorma and Will were so impressed by the quality of their work during the reading that they immediately asked them to stay in the project. Us it was incredibly lucky that they agreed." "Val Kilmer participated in the SNL show a few years ago. His sketches were very funny," says Lorna Michaels. Val did it!” "It was the funniest reading I've ever had in my entire acting career," Val recalls. - Will set such a heat! Unbelievable! Twice I almost spilled coffee on my white pants!” Lieutenant Dixon Piper, who can hardly stand MacGruber's antics, was played by Ryan Phillippe in the film. Ryan, who is more often invited to heavy dramas and scary thrillers, liked the role of a comedic actor very much: "In most of the films in which I had the chance to act, I had to suffer a lot - the actor laughs. - I thought that it was time to try to star in a film where I would have to laugh from morning to night. I have been watching SNL since I was 11 years old, I have seen almost all episodes of this program, I am a big fan of Will and Kristen. They are both - geniuses from comedy". Ryan, who is not used to working in comedies of this type, was forced to make incredible efforts to at least somehow restrain himself from laughing: "I have never in my life been in the same frame with such a funny person who says the most outrageous things to your face. When Will joked on the script, I was ready for it, but when he started improvising, I didn't know what else could fly from his lips and how I should react to it." Piper's boss is played by a real "veteran" of the big screen - Powers Boothe, whose filmography is also dominated by dramas. On the set of "Super MacGruber", according to his words, he was finally able to have fun and just relax. In addition, it was a great opportunity to see his old friend Val Kilmer, with whom he starred together a few years ago in the film "Tombstone". Longtime SNL participant Maya Rudolph also starred in the film in a small role. She played MacGruber's fiancee Casey, who she actually plays in SNL sketches. The producers called the superstars of the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) wrestling federation to play the roles of former members of McGruber's elite team, to whom he turns for help. So, one of the most famous wrestlers in the world, Chris Jericho, starred in the film, who had his own reasons for agreeing to the filming: the fact is that he and Will Forte were once members of the famous Los Angeles improv troupe called The Groundlings (Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph worked with them in the team).