@rockmarooned Published Aug. 28, 2026, 11:30 a.m. ET
Add Decider on Google More On: theo von What Louis CK’s Netflix Is A Joke Comeback Says About The Sad State Of Our Culture In 2026 Is the ‘Busboys’ Movie Streaming on Netflix or Amazon Prime Video? Theo Von Roasted After Viral Joe Rogan Clip Shows He Confused the CIA With Talent Agency CAA Walton Goggins Responds to Pete Davidson’s Prediction That Fans Will Eventually Turn On Him: “How Lucky Am I?!!” Look, this is what happens when big movie studios stop making comedies for the big screen: To some extent, they cede the space to whatever podcaster comics have gained a rabid fanbase. So it goes with Busboys, which teams Theo Von with David Spade, who’s old enough to remember the Before Times of Adam Sandler vehicles coming out on 3,000 screens nationwide. (Actually, so is Von. He’s not exactly a spring chicken. But Spade was actually there, occasionally popping up in Sandler comedies, his own team-ups with the late Chris Farley, or less well-regarded solo vehicles.) Anyway, Busboys, about two loser-y guys who dream of becoming waiters, came out in brief and limited release last spring. But the movie found its footing in its recent Hulu release, where it’s been at or near the top of the service’s charts for the past two weeks. So is this a spiritual sequel to Joe Dirt, or more proof that comedies aren’t worth leaving the house for? (Or both?)
The Gist: Markie (David Spade) and Steef (Theo Von) are best friends occupying particularly low rungs on the socioeconomic ladder. Working together at a dead-end septic-pumping job, they decide to abandon their old lives, abscond for Mexico, and get jobs as waiters, which they see as particularly high-status individuals. But they have to work their way up from busboy jobs, which isn’t as easy as it looks.
Nor is that simple plot as easy as it sounds to get moving. Somehow, Busboys labors through 25 minutes of laborious backstory before it arrives at its central premise of two older guys working as busboys in Arizona near the Mexico border, then detours away from it with a drug-dealing plot that includes the pair briefly going back to school a la Billy Madison. Rather than an observational comedy about the indignities of restaurant work, the movie meanders through a bunch of disconnected jokes and whining. But the idea seems to be an underdog buddy comedy about a couple of lovable losers trying to improve their lives.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The screenplay here is credited to Spade and Von, and it feels like Spade is trying to retain as much as he can from the worst Happy Madison productions ever made — not just Adam Sandler vehicles like The Do-Over, but the Sandler-produced stuff like Paul Blart: Mall Cop, where the filmmakers turn capable comic actors into scrappy lil’ put-upon underdogs who just can’t catch a break. It’s a strategy that stems from insecurity. The movie isn’t sure that either Spade or Von will be innately likable, so it invents character after character to be cruel to them, not realizing how hateful that can come across. Steef’s mom, for example, keeps angrily demanding that he funnel all of his money toward her desired sex-change operation, while Markie’s inexplicable girlfriend cheats on him incessantly (with a waiter, natch). Oh, and during Steef’s childhood, one of his teachers makes nasty fun of his dad being in jail for murder, causing him to dejectedly drop out of school. Later, a Mexican child profanely berates the guys in an endless running gag. Basically, this is a movie about a couple of dumb white guys plagued by the menaces of… women, transgender people, Mexicans, and teachers. In that sense, it might also remind you of a particularly aggrieved podcast.
Performance Worth Watching: Of the two leads, Spade is the one who gets any laughs at all. But Lean McKendrick, as a fellow busser, provides stronger (and, unfortunately), briefer rays of sunshine. It’s hard to figure out what the talented writer-director of Scrambled is doing in a Von/Spade joint, especially for such a flimsy, barely-there part, but it’s nice to see her regardless.
Our Take: As a character in the movie points out, busboys are typically young, starting-out restaurant employees — sometimes as young as 18 or 19. Rather than focusing on the humorous incongruity of a couple of middle-aged guys getting busboy jobs because they mistakenly think their lives will be great if they get promoted to a waiter position, Busboys immediately gets to work confusing and complicating its protagonists’ ages. In a movie-opening flashback, we see a teenage version of Steef drop out of school and meet Markie, who is an unspecified number of years older, when Markie accidentally hits him with his car. (These circumstances, too, require way more set-up-to-the-set-up than this movie warrants: It’s Markie’s job to… drive around dogs who are dying of cancer, and show them a good time?) Markie is played by Spade, but the flashback version of Steef is played by an actual teenager. The main action of the movie takes place 16 years later, meaning that Von, who is fully 46 years old in real life, is for some reason playing a guy who’s about 30, while Spade is more convincingly playing someone closer to Von’s real age. Why not just have them both play middle-aged guys, which they are? Why have a lengthy flashback of Steef as a teenager in the first place, and require them to meet via car accident? Why not just introduce them as lifelong friends in dead-end jobs looking for something better? Does all of this really require a series of sob stories?
These are minor details in the big picture — or they would be, if Busboys had a big picture. Instead, it plays like Spade and Von, despite their various successes, started the project with a chip on their shoulder about their less-than-wealthy upbringings. Rather than parlaying that into a comedy that feels at all relatable or lived-in, speaking to an economic demographic not often depicted in mainstream comedy, they mostly communicate a sense of grievance about the abuses the world heaps on mediocre-or-worse white dudes. Spade at least knows how to throw away some of his laugh lines — this is the kind of movie where you start to feel grateful for the mildest of chuckles — but his performance doesn’t have much of his trademark half-self-amused, half-self-loathing snark. He’s in Joe Dirt mode without committing to a dumb-guy routine, saving that material for Von, and leaving for himself a kind of generic sad-sack vibe. Like a lot of later-period Spade material, there’s a surly moroseness to the movie that’s not much fun to be around.
Beyond the unpleasant tone, Busboys just isn’t especially professionally made. Spade and Von financed it themselves, and hired Jonah Feingold to direct it. Feingold has a fair amount of experience (including the nigh-unwatchable rom-com Dating & New York) yet whether hampered by his own limitations or the budget’s, he repeatedly stages scenes in ways that feel like the rough approximation of a half-articulated idea, with clunky transitions, blocking that has little sense of basic space, and underdirected performances. So the movie has to fall back on the scattershot-at-best Von/Spade screenplay, which has a habit of introducing characters and then sidelining them for long stretches. The movie sets up an ensemble of restaurant-worker characters, only to mix its leads up in a drug-dealing plot; it’s one mystifying, self-defeating choice among many.
Comedy is harder than it looks, and studios have done younger comic voices no favors by curtailing production of inexpensive comic vehicles. Then again, Von and Spade are old enough to know better.
Our Call: Theo Von seems to have the kinds of fans who can’t be dissuaded by bad reviews, which might help account for Busboys doing so well on Hulu. But if you’re the type of comedy fan able to heed warnings, SKIP IT. This is dire, amateurish stuff that will make you long for the days of Black Sheep, let alone something as genuinely funny as Tommy Boy.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.
