This certainly isn’t a worthy sequel to the pioneering 1978 “rockumentary” The Rutles: All You Need is Cash. Instead it’s a hastily cobbled together Rutles TV infomercial that was supposed to air on TV like Tragical History Tour, except no one was interested in seeing negligible outtakes and repeats of the original movie interspersed with mostly unfunny, forced celebrity interviews with everyone from Salman Rushdie to Clint Black to Tom Hanks to Robin Williams riffing with a German accent. Lacking the scripted pace of the original, these off-the-cuff interviews (except the ones with actual comedians) come off more as favors to Lorne Michaels and Eric Idle. Sorely disappointing, none of the surviving Rutles appear, and Idle’s BBC narratives are largely repeats of the memorable gags from the first movie, with cheap camera work following him that resembles footage he knocked off while on holiday. This might’ve been tolerable as an extra feature on the original Rutles DVD, but as a stand-alone item, it should’ve been named All You Need is (Your) Cash Back.
Serene Dominic writes about music for Metro Times. Send comments to [email protected].
