Mister America

If Heidecker's not holding a mirror up to our idiocy Borat-style, there's no mistaking the echoes in a thin-skinned, name-calling brute elbowing his way onto political center stage for the ugliest reasons.

Running only a little shorter than the average season of On Cinema At The Cinema, it's never as cringe-inducingly funny or inventive as the webseries that spawned it.

The long and circuitous narrative history of the so-called OCU weighs heavily on Eric Notarnicola's film.

Prolific actor-comedian-musician Tim Heidecker may have a sizable cult following but it's doubtful he'll find many new fans with his latest effort, the tedious and laugh-free mockumentary "Mister America."

Heidecker's comedy thrives in the liminal space between what's supposed to be funny and what's not, and the one thing he can't afford to do is stop to explain the joke.

Mister America ambles through two overlapped realities (On Cinema's and our own) and reveals a pathos that makes its dry political comedy accessible beyond an ingrained fanbase, if not poignant.

This is cringey comedy, and the cringe factor is taken up a few notches in this narrative spinoff.

To anyone who doesn't find this to their taste, this can be weird, if not outright alienating. For those who can appreciate it, this is an unquestionable masterpiece.

There's no additional wit here, no insider perspective and no investment in character. Most of what we're presented with was improvised and that's what it looks like -- a small group of not particularly charismatic actors winging it.

At best, it plays like a bizarro version of The War Room.