MacGruber (film)
MacGruber is a 2010 American action comedy film based on the Saturday Night Live sketch of the same name, itself a parody of action-adventure television series MacGyver. Jorma Taccone of the comedy trio The Lonely Island directed the film, which stars Will Forte in the title role; Kristen Wiig as Vicki St. Elmo, MacGruber's work partner and love interest; Ryan Phillippe as Dixon Piper, a young lieutenant who becomes part of MacGruber's team; Maya Rudolph as Casey, MacGruber's deceased wife; and Val Kilmer as Dieter von Cunth, the villain.
This article is about the 2010 film. For the television series, see MacGruber (TV series). For the Saturday Night Live sketch, see MacGruber.MacGruber
- Will Forte
- John Solomon
- Jorma Taccone
Jamie Gross
Matthew Compton
- March 15, 2010 (SXSW)
- May 21, 2010 (United States)
91 minutes [1]
United States
English
$10 million[2]
$9.3 million[3]
Originally scheduled for release on April 23, 2010, the film was instead released on May 21, 2010, grossing $9.3 million worldwide against a $10 million budget.
Plot[edit]
In eastern Siberia's Dzhugdzhur Mountains, Dieter Von Cunth and his men take control of a nuclear X-5 warhead. In Ecuador, Col. Jim Faith and Lt. Dixon Piper are searching for former Green Beret, Navy SEAL and Army Ranger MacGruber. Finding him meditating in a chapel, they ask him to retrieve the warhead. He refuses. That night, MacGruber explodes into a fit of rage, waking from the flashback of Cunth killing his fiancée, Casey Fitzpatrick, at their wedding. He accepts the mission.
After a heated conversation with Faith and Piper at the Pentagon, MacGruber creates a list and travels to the U.S. to form his team to pursue Cunth. Recruiting all but his long-time friend Vicki St. Elmo and Brick Hughes. MacGruber meets Faith and Piper on the tarmac, while his team is in a van with his homemade C-4 explosives, which explode, killing his entire team. Faith takes MacGruber off the case. MacGruber convinces Piper to form a new team, and Vicki arrives at the Pentagon to join them in taking down Cunth.
They travel to Cunth's nightclub in Las Vegas. A driver in the parking lot is rude to MacGruber and angers him, so he repeats the license plate number KFBR392 obsessively to remember it. MacGruber gets on stage and announces who he is, his intentions, and where he will be the next day.
Their sting operation has Vicki portraying MacGruber. Hoss Bender, Cunth's henchman, attacks MacGruber and Piper's van, but MacGruber runs down and kills Bender. With Vicki disguised as Bender and Piper disguised as MacGruber, the team attempts to break into a warehouse to stop Cunth from getting the rocket operation passwords. MacGruber distracts the guards and Piper kills most of the men, but cannot stop the transfer of the passcodes. At Cunth's charity event MacGruber confronts and threatens him and his guards, who throw him out.
MacGruber returns to the Pentagon where Faith reprimands him and takes him off of the case. MacGruber and Piper have beers outside his trailer while MacGruber explains his history with Cunth: MacGruber met him and Casey Fitzpatrick while they were in college; Cunth was engaged to Casey until her affair with MacGruber, who asked her to abort Cunth's baby.
MacGruber uses Piper as a human shield to survive an ambush, escaping with Vicki. They believe that Piper was killed in the attack, but he reveals that he was wearing a bulletproof vest. Commending MacGruber on his quick thinking, only to realize that MacGruber wasn't aware of the vest, Piper leaves the team. Seeing MacGruber has been shot in the leg, Vicki takes him back to her house to remove the bullet. She confesses her love to him, admits she is a virgin, and they make love. MacGruber goes to his bride's grave in shame, but her ghost gives her blessing (and has sex with him on her tombstone).
At Vicki's, MacGruber discovers Cunth has kidnapped her and realizes Cunth plans to blow up Congress during the State of the Union. He calls Col. Faith to inform him and then finds and destroys the KFBR392 car. Cunth calls MacGruber to gloat, MacGruber traces the call and Piper agrees to help on one last mission. Making their way into Cunth's compound, they are captured and taken to Cunth, Vicki and the missile. They pound Cunth and crew into submission and MacGruber handcuffs Cunth to a handrail. They remove the warhead and guidance system, and escape as the missile explodes. Cunth escapes using an axe to chop off his handcuffed hand.
Six months later, at MacGruber and Vicki's wedding are his dead team members as ghosts. Mirroring his wedding to Casey, MacGruber spots Cunth with an RPG. He saves Vicki and battles Cunth, throwing him off a cliff behind the altar, shooting him with a machine gun and launching a grenade as he falls, incinerating the corpse, and finally urinating on it from the top of the cliff.
Marketing[edit]
Pictures were leaked on the Internet on January 6, 2010. A two-minute red band trailer was released on January 19, 2010, and the next day, January 20, a green band trailer was released.[15]
On April 19, 2010, Forte, Wiig, and Phillippe hosted WWE Raw from the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey in character to promote the film.[16]
Phillippe guest hosted Saturday Night Live on April 17, 2010 and made reference to the film in his opening monologue.[17]
Future[edit]
Potential sequel[edit]
After an off-hand mention by Taccone in an interview in 2012, Forte dismissed rumors of a sequel, commenting, "We jokingly talk about the sequel all the time. But I don't think anybody in their right mind would give us any money for it."[41] The following year, he told Entertainment Weekly that Taccone had mentioned creating a Kickstarter to financially support a sequel, saying, "We are going to make MacGruber 2 for sure. Whether we have to do it with a video camera in our backyards – there will be some form of MacGruber 2."[42] The film's writing team at one point convened to produce a loosely completed outline, but the trio have since been too busy to complete a script.[43] In 2015, Forte said the team has a "realistic shot" at producing the film, and it is his second priority behind his comedy series, The Last Man on Earth.[44]
