Two rock-bottom drivers. One wealthy teenager. A simple transport job to rehab. What could possibly go wrong?
In the case of Idiots, the answer is: absolutely everything. Macon Blair's latest feature, which landed on streaming August 20, 2026, after a theatrical window this summer, takes a premise that sounds like a straightforward gig-economy gig and detonates it into a 100-minute spiral of narcotics, menace, and spectacularly poor decision-making. It is, depending on your constitution, either a cautionary tale or a comedy. Mostly it's both.
The film pairs Dave Franco and O'Shea Jackson Jr. as Mark and Davis, two men who have hit the kind of bottom that doesn't come with a rebound plan. They're drivers - the sort who'll take any job that pays cash and doesn't ask too many questions. So when they're hired to ferry Sheridan, a rich kid played by Mason Thames, to a rehabilitation facility, it registers as easy money. Sheridan, of course, has other ideas. What follows is a road trip in the loosest possible sense: drugs, danger, and crime, with the passenger systematically dismantling every plan his escorts make.
Blair, who also appears in the film as a character named D.D, alongside "His Buddy," has spent his career exploring people who are bad at being criminals - Blue Ruin, Green Room, and his underrated directorial debut I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore all trade in amateurs whose desperation outpaces their competence. Idiots fits squarely in that lineage, though it leans harder into comedy than anything he's directed before. The genre tags say Comedy and Crime. The tone, if the trailers are any indication, splits the difference with a straight face.
The cast is a roster of actors who specialize in making chaos look lived-in. Franco, long overdue for a role that lets him play scrappy rather than slick, gets to work opposite Jackson Jr., whose timing and physicality have been the best thing about several movies that didn't deserve him. Thames, who broke out in The Black Phone, plays Sheridan as a kid who has clearly learned that wealth buys immunity right up until it doesn't. And then there's the supporting bench, which is where Idiots gets genuinely weird - in the best way.
Kiernan Shipka appears as Irina Anastas, Peter Dinklage turns up as Karl "Koko" Sandoz, and Nicholas Braun - yes, that Nicholas Braun - is credited as Joe Thom Pell Aka Pricka Bush Da Werewoof. Lynn Wanlass plays Bodha "Baba" Anastas. If those names suggest a film that escalates from bad to surreal, that's likely the point. Blair has always had an instinct for the absurd lurking inside the grim, and a cast this eclectic suggests he's not holding back.
Which raises the question of who Idiots is actually for. The ratings tell an interesting story: a 6.44 on TMDb and a 6.2 on IMDb - respectable, not rapturous. That's the profile of a movie that divides people. Some viewers will click with its mixture of deadpan comedy and genuine threat; others will find the tonal shifts jarring. Blair's films have never been for everyone. They're for the people who like their laughs with a side of dread.
It also arrives at a moment when the crime comedy is having something of a moment on streaming - low-budget, high-personality films that would have struggled to find an audience theatrically but thrive when viewers can discover them on a whim. At 100 minutes, Idiots doesn't overstay its welcome. It's a tight, mean little machine.
What's most appealing about the setup is how little it pretends to be about anything grander than incompetence. Mark and Davis aren't masterminds undone by a clever mark. They're just two guys who were already losing before Sheridan got in the car. The film's title tells you everything about its sympathies. These aren't criminal geniuses; they're idiots, and the movie loves them for it.
Whether Idiots becomes a cult favorite or just a curiosity in Blair's filmography remains to be seen. But there's something refreshing about a movie that knows exactly what it is: a messy, funny, occasionally brutal ride with people who should never have been trusted with a vehicle, a teenager, or each other.
Stream it if you like your comedies with teeth. Just don't expect anyone to make it to rehab on time.
