MacGruber is a 2010 American action comedy film based on the Saturday Night Live sketch of the same name, which itself was a parody of action-adventure television series MacGyver. Directed by Jorma Taccone (in his directorial debut) and written by Taccone, Will Forte, and John Solomon, it stars 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.
The film expands the sketch's premise into a deadpan send-up of 1980s and 1990s action cinema, drawing inspiration from films such as Lethal Weapon. The creative team set out to construct a sincere action narrative around its absurd, narcissistic protagonist, while retaining the sketch's heightened vulgarity and unpredictable comedic tone. It was produced under a tight schedule while its writers were still working weekly on SNL. Shot in Albuquerque, New Mexico on a modest budget, MacGruber was given significant creative freedom, and employs stylized cinematography to closely mimic the action blockbusters it parodied. The film was released in the United States by Universal Pictures on May 21, 2010.
Famously considered one of SNL biggest theatrical misfires, MacGruber opened to weak box-office returns, grossing $9.3 million worldwide against a $10 million budget. It also received mixed critical reviews, with some praising its committed performances and anti-comedy sensibility while others criticized its shock humor and uneven tone. Over time, however, the film has developed a substantial cult following, with critics and filmmakers alike reassessing its bold comedic style; its enduring popularity ultimately led to a television series continuation released on Peacock in 2021.
Plot 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.
Cast
Production
MacGruber is based on a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live, a parody of the television series MacGyver. It was created by writer Jorma Taccone, who pitched the idea to cast member/writer Will Forte over a period of several weeks. Forte was initially reluctant to commit to the sketch, deeming it too dumb, but accepted after persuasion from Taccone. The first sketch aired in January 2007, and led to multiple more segments in the following years. In 2009, the sketches were spun off into a series of commercials sponsored by Pepsi premiering during Super Bowl XLIII that featured the actor behind MacGyver, Richard Dean Anderson, as MacGruber's father. The advertisements led the character and sketches to receive a wider level of popularity.
Following the success of the advertisements, creator Lorne Michaels approached Forte, Taccone, and writer John Solomon with the idea to produce a MacGruber film, and they were at first skeptical. They began pitching ideas for a potential feature-length adaptation, deciding first and foremost it would not be the sketch repeated for its entire runtime. The film's central conceit was to produce a real action film, with MacGruber as comic relief. It was inspired by their love of 1980s–90s action films, such as Lethal Weapon, Rambo, and Die Hard. To this end, it is considerably more deadpan in its parody, with most characters outside MacGruber designed to be "as serious as possible". The most difficult part of the writing process was to portray MacGruber—an "insanely flawed [and] narcissistic" individual—as a likable lead character.
The film was written while simultaneously producing a weekly episode of SNL, and the show's production process left the trio fully deprived of sleep. This led to sequences deemed "crazier," such as a scene involving celery. There was concern the film might receive an NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, which could lead to certain commercial disappointment. The script was written in five weeks by Taccone and Forte, with a first draft coming in at 177 pages and lacking a third act. It was subsequently re-written under budgetary concerns, which mostly involved deleting scenes containing special effects. Forte praised the level of creative freedom afforded to the filmmakers, noting that even the more outrageous jokes were allowed to remain in the final film.
On the June 1, 2009, episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Forte announced that MacGruber had been greenlit and production was to begin on August 9, with Jimmy Fallon adding on the July 29 episode that it would be filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Cameos by WWE wrestlers Chris Jericho, The Big Show, Mark Henry, Kane, MVP and The Great Khali and actor Derek Mears, were later confirmed.
Following a short six-week period of preparation, the film was shot between August 10 and September 13, 2009, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The film shoot employed a crew composed of local workers as a part of a tax credit. The quick film schedule of 28 days led to the filmmakers adjusting scenes to complete them on time, as the presence of automatic weapons on set would slow down the process. Keeping in line with their sources for parody, the filmmakers opted for cinematography emulating the style of blockbuster action films. This involved most prominently using smoke machines for interior areas, as they noticed similar scenes in Lethal Weapon inexplicably contain prominent smoke.
Legal disputes Prior to the film's release, MacGruber stirred controversy with Lee David Zlotoff, creator of the TV series MacGyver, whose contract stipulates he retains the right to a film version of the TV series. In 2010, his lawyer sent several cease-and-desist letters and met with litigators to determine a course of action. No suit was brought.
Marketing 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.
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.
Phillippe guest hosted Saturday Night Live on April 17, 2010, and made reference to the film in his opening monologue.
Release Initially set for a release date of April 23, 2010, the film eventually opened on May 21, 2010, in the United States.
Box office The film grossed $1,569,025 on its opening day, and $4,043,945 for its opening weekend. The film earned a total of $8,460,995 by the end of its third weekend, against its $10 million production cost.
In July 2010, Parade listed the film #2 on its list of "Biggest Box Office Flops of 2010."
MacGruber realized a third-week drop of showings of 94%, from 2,546 to 177 theaters. The film was removed from theaters after the third week.
Critical response Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 43 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C−" on an A+ to F scale.
John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter felt it was "utterly disposable but diverting." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised the "unabashed affection" of Taccone's directorial style while commending Forte's performance as "contagious." The Boston Globe Ty Burr deemed it "a lot better than it should be," while criticizing its "smugness" and abundance of toilet humor. In contrast, Andrew Schenker of Slate Magazine felt that "MacGruber at its best when it's most vulgar, when its foul-mouthed and essentially insane hero is free to indulge in his signature bits of raunchy whimsy."
A. O. Scott of The New York Times called it "a film that poses a philosophical question fundamental to our inquiry here, namely: 'Why does this exist?'" Andrew Pulver of The Guardian was similarly negative, commenting, "Only the merest hint of amusement is to be found in this uninspired latest effusion from the conveyor belt that is Saturday Night Live." Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum called it a "naughty throwaway in all senses of the word throwaway-90 minutes of talented performers doing and saying dumb, crude stuff in pursuit of an elusive laugh."