BUSBOYS
(director: Jonah Feingold; screenwriters: David Spade, Theo Von; cinematographer: Jeff Leeds Cohn; editor: Nathan Floody; music: Chad Courneys, Hari Dafusia; cast: David Spade (Markie Montgomery), Theo Von (Steefen ‘Steef’ Bam), Gavin Warren (Steef as a teen), Jimmy Gonzalez (Murderball, polio wheelchair bound busboy), Leah McKendrick (Romina, busgirl), Chris Elliott (Troy, sewer plant manager), Trevor Wallace (Trevor, sewer worker), Tim Dillon (Restaurant Manager Tim), Debra DiGiovann (teacher), Libby Higgins (Brenda, Steef’s mom), Jay Pharaoh (Crackhead, underground DEA agent), Michelle Ortiz (April, restaurant hostess); Runtime: 97; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Robert Ogden Barnum, Ezra Cooperstein, David Spade, Theo Von; Barnum Picture Company/Busboys Holding; 2026)
“Crude comedy.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Jonah Feingold (“31 Candles”/”At Midnight”) directs. David Spade and Theo Von write, produce and star in this sloppily made crude comedy–a self-financed film that’s like a fuck you student film.
The 30something loser, a make-a-wish driver for dying dogs, Markie Montgomery (David Spade), makes friends with the teenager high school student Steefen ‘Steef’ Bam (Gavin Warren), who recovers in the hospital when by accident Markie hit him with his doggie car. They become friends during the hospital visits, as the kid’s mom (Libby Higgins) dislikes him so much she fails to visit and his dad’s in prison.
After the kid recovers, the new friends, despite the large age gap, leave together from their unnamed town in Arizona to become busboys at a Mexican restaurant that’s just across the border. They believe the busboy job will give them the experience to soon become waiters and make more money. But they are made to feel unwelcome there by the unfriendly staff and the harassing local drug dealers, and things don’t go according to plans.
Some 16 years later when Markie is in his fifties and Steef (Theo Von) is in his thirties, both are still together and both are working at a dead-end job for a sewer company called “We Suck.”
Spade plays the straight man for Von’s goofy but not really funny comical antics. The jokes are lame anti-social ones on gays, dicks, defecation, wheel-chairs and drugs.
If the film’s slight story and bad jokes weren’t bad enough, it opens with Kid Rock singing “Cowboy” (1998). Need I say more!
REVIEWED ON 4/26/2026 GRADE: D
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