Tim Dillon: This Is Your Country 2024 Movie Review
I will not be going into whether comedian Tim Dillon’s Netflix standup special, titled This is Your County is actually unscripted or not. It does claim to be. The thing here is that it works in a way that you wouldn’t imagine. Not only is it unscripted, it also looks and feels like a talk show with a live audience, guests, and Dillon himself as the host. The country in the title is the United States of America, of course. Dillon’s set is pretty much looking into the current state of the greatest country in the world, but from a humorous perspective. Let us look into the different segments of it one by one, without further ado.
You know you’re in for something different the moment Dillon announces he’s going to bring on random guests who’ll talk about uncomfortable truths. The first one, William, happens to be an Onlyfans masseuse who used to make adult films, before which he used to act, shoot, produce, and edit. Both his girlfriend Shireny and mother Sata are not too happy about the current job and completely in the dark about the previous one.
Dillon brings in both of these women—first Shireny, to whom William confesses about doing porn, and then Sata, who’s as surprised as her son’s girlfriend. Long Willey (yeah, that’s the porn name, quite fittingly) makes a case about how lucrative massaging human posterior is, before proposing to his girlfriend. The bit where he says he wants to be her pornstar for life is both sweet and hilarious. How can she not say yes after all this?
Next up, we have Mexican immigrant Sergio, who doesn’t want to live in America anymore because he has to pay too much for his data plan. Sergio’s son Luis enters the scene and tries to convince the dad to stay here—for the women and the money. Sadly, Sergio is adamant about leaving. So much that even Bandit—another random human pretending to be a dog and getting away with it because America doesn’t judge—fails to convince him. Too bad for Luis, I suppose, unless he decides to stay back.
Plus size Livi’s biggest problem in life has to be her Pilates instructor mom, who has made her life a living hell by trying to control what she eats. The mom, whom Dillon terms an ‘almond witch,’ talks about her concern for Livi’s health, but the daughter is clearly a believer in ‘you-only-live-once.’ All she wants is for her mother to just let her be, considering she’s an adult minding her own business. Dillon takes the question to the show audience, most of whom back Livi, but there’s this young white man who doesn’t like her talking crap about the mom. The comedian (rightfully) ignores that opinion and brings a giant sundae on the floor that he goes on to enjoy with the daughter and even makes the mother try a little. That’s a great conclusion, but I’m not sure if Livi’s mom is going to tone things down a little or not.
I can’t help but think of George Michael and Maeby Funke when cousins Christian and Bella walk in. They used to be best of friends and make challenge videos on YouTube together, until Bella started venturing into her own thing. That happened to be bullying men on Onlyfans and making so much money out of it. But the problem here is that Christian cannot accept it. He thinks his cousin has sold her soul to the dark side. Bela counters it pretty well by taunting her cousin about not making his own money, whereas she pays all of her bills. The audience, and Dillon, also support Bella, who’s just living by helping men with humiliation kinks, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The Arrested Development bit of Dillon’s show concludes with Christian not being able to convince Bela to quit doing what she’s doing and making challenge videos with him instead. Why would she do that anyway?
Just when you’re wondering whether or not there will be a husband who has done some genuinely idiotic thing, Francesco comes out with his incredible story of losing an insane amount of money in NFTs. What’s the irony? His wife, Lindsey, has a financial background (and a sound mind, I suppose) who would never back such an investment. Dillon brings Lindsey on the set, and we find out that she’s eight months pregnant. Clearly, that’s not at all the right time to receive news like your husband has lost so much money just by being stupid, when he could have just consulted you. What’s even worse is that it is happening in front of a live audience. That of course makes my belief of the whole thing being not quite unscripted stronger, and for Lindsey’s sake, I actually hope it’s all staged. Because if it’s not, then whatever happened in this segment is a tad insensitive for the pregnant woman.
The highlight of Dillon’s standup has to be the way the comedian presents the whole thing. The talk show twist is what makes the set work much better. And it really doesn’t matter whether everything you see on screen is spontaneous or Dillon has carefully crafted all of it beforehand. Because both actually prove how talented the comedian actually is—in the context of either thinking about all that and coming up with a script or churning out the whole thing in front of a live audience, just like that. I’ve seen quite a few standup specials this year, and Dillon has only added value to the latest trend of approaching things a bit differently. His set is also relevant considering the socio-political state of America, with an election coming up pretty soon. Full marks to Dillon for reminding us Donald Trump is still a presidential hopeful and making fun of him and his fans!
