By Robert Scucci
| Published
Before Donald Glover was well-known as Childish Gambino and rightfully became a household name thanks to his many talents as a comedian, musician, and actor, he was part of a comedy troupe called Derrick Comedy. Having had the privilege of watching Derrick Comedy’s early YouTube sketches become viral sensations in real-time, I didn’t yet know how far the troupe would push their comedy with their first and only feature-length effort, 2009’s Mystery Team.
When Mystery Team was first making its rounds, I felt underwhelmed because their YouTube content was next-level in its efforts to offend its audience. Just look up skits like “National Spelling Bee” and “Don’t Jerk Off To This” if you need some context. Just make sure nobody’s within earshot, or you’ll definitely be called into HR if you watch these skits at work.
Revisiting Mystery Team for the first time since its initial release, I’m thrilled to say that it does everything it sets out to do, even if the humor is more tame than Derrick Comedy’s earlier skits. In hindsight, that feeling of underwhelm I experienced wasn’t justified. I think at the time I was just expecting them to dial up on the offensive humor, and felt disappointed because they took a more wholesome approach to their storytelling.
But make no mistake, because Mystery Team is not a movie that you’ll want to sit down and watch with your family.
The Less You Know About It, The Better
Mystery Team is your classic story about celebrated children detectives realizing that they have to grow up. Approaching their high school graduation, Jason (Donald Glover), Duncan (DC Pierson), and Charlie (Dominic Dierkes) realize that their private practice – which is basically a lemonade stand with a bell on it – hasn’t really seen any action in years. Too old to solve mysteries involving stolen pies and missing cats, and too young to join the police academy, the Mystery Team is a laughing stock because they all seem to be stuck in various phases of arrested development.
Everything changes for the Mystery Team when they take it upon themselves to solve a double homicide so they can prove themselves as legitimate detectives before shipping off to college. What follows shortly thereafter is a comedy of errors involving the drug trade, dubious strippers, and fraud at the highest level with plenty of gamer words tossed around between swigs of chocolate milk, the Mystery Team’s refreshment of choice.
Uncovering clues along the way, the Mystery Team learns what it means to protect and serve, even if the victims’ two daughters, Kelly (Aubrey Plaza) and Brianna (Daphne Ciccarelle), would rather the police take care of the investigation.
Raunchy With A Side Of Wholesome
Most of Mystery Team’s humor is generated from the wholesomeness of its principal characters in the sense that they’re still playing detective without fully considering the implications of the case, and suspects, they’re pursuing. Similar to South Park’s “Lil’ Crime Stoppers” when Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny are tasked with busting a meth lab after successfully rescuing a kidnapped doll, Mystery Team boasts the same naive energy, and carries it well across its 97-minute runtime.
As Jason, Duncan, and Charlie approach a critical juncture in their investigation and realize it’s too late to go back to how things were now that they’re chasing after criminals who are actually dangerous, there’s no shortage of miscommunications that drives the storytelling in ways that are too intense for the young detectives to handle.
Equal parts wholesome and offensive, Mystery Team fearlessly tells a coming-of-age story about a bunch of young adults who never gave up on their childhood dream of being detectives, even if they have absolutely no clue what they’re doing in the real world.
As of this writing, you can stream Mystery Team for free with ads on Prime Video (formerly known as Freevee).
