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'Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show'

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BY GENE SEYMOUR | gene.seymour@newsday.com

February 8, 2008

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 by an amiable bunch of guys led by America's Favorite Lout.

Vaughn was riding a lot more than a bus on this road show. He was also cruising on the breakthrough he'd made that same summer in "Wedding Crashers." He'd even brought along Keir O'Donnell, who played the obsessive gay painter in the film, to do stick-figure sketches onstage. What were you expecting from a live-action "wild west" show? Lariats?

Actually, the centerpiece of the tour was four stand-up comedians, Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst and Sebastian Maniscalo, who signed on to travel with Vaughn and his longtime sidekicks Jon Favreau (from "Rudy" and "Swingers") and Peter Billingsley. (Yep, that same Peter Billingsley from "A Christmas Story" with whom Vaughn once did an after-school special on - wait for it - steroid abuse.) Justin Long was also part of the troupe and is seen here doing a devastating impression of Vaughn.

The stand-up routines are, mostly, bluer versions of the "didja-ever-notice" school of humor that made Jerry Seinfeld an ungodly power in the universe. But the film's soul comes when the cameras move offstage to visit the comedians' families and, especially, when the guys travel to camps where victims of Hurricane Katrina were offered free tickets to the show.

VINCE VAUGHN'S WILD WEST COMEDY SHOW: 30 Days and 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland (R). The "Wedding Crashers" star barnstorms across "flyover country" with four fledgling stand-up comics (Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst and Sebastian Maniscalo) and a few old friends (Justin Long, Peter Billingsley, Jon Favreau). A tad overlong, but as vanity projects go, this is warm, openhearted stuff. 1:40 (vulgarities, risque humor). In area theaters.