I Am Chris Farley Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

I Am Chris Farley Blu-ray Movie Review

BMOC (Big Man of Comedy)

Reviewed by Michael Reuben August 11, 2015

Chris Farley, a hyperkinetic ball of comedic fire, broke out as a cast member of Saturday Night Live in 1990, starred in four films (of which 1995's Tommy Boy remains by far the most popular) and died in 1997 of a drug overdose at the age of 33 (which was, by a sad coincidence, the same age at which another rotund SNL star, John Belushi, died twelve years earlier, of the same cause). I Am Chris Farley is the latest bio-documentary from Derik Murray's Network Entertainment (I Am Evel Knievel), co-directed by Murray and Brent Hodge (A Brony Tale). After a brief theatrical release, it debuted on Spike TV on August 10, 2015.

Hodge and Murray have assembled an entertaining gallery that is evenly split between familiar faces from Farley's comedy career—notable among them are SNL creator Lorne Michaels, Adam Sandler, David Spade, Dan Aykroyd and Mike Myers—and figures from his early life, led by younger brother, Kevin P. Farley, a standup comic who also served as executive producer. Also appearing are Farley's two other brothers, John and Tom, along with his sister, Barbara, who was the oldest of the five siblings. Their accounts of growing up together in a happy but rambunctious home in Madison, Wisconsin, are the highlight of the documentary, along with their recollections of their remarkably tolerant father, who they all agree was Chris's inspiration.

The interview segments are skillfully woven together with vintage clips both from Farley's appearances on SNL and his earlier work at Chicago's Second City Theatre, where, like many future SNL cast members, he learned the craft of improv comedy. The film also uses excerpts from an appearance that Farley made on David Letterman's show to promote Tommy Boy, during which he gave his usual 150%, answering even the simplest question with something extreme and over-the-top. It's a recurrent theme in the interviews: how Farley's comedic gift was rooted in his insistence on always taking things too far. The same quality inevitably led him to excesses of consumption, whether of food, alcohol or drugs. Muliple visits to rehab proved ineffective. Listening to Farley's family and friends describe the man they knew, it becomes evident that the characters he played were not dissimilar from the real person (including his famous motivational speaker "Matt Foley", whose name was borrowed from a long-time friend—ironically, a soft-spoken Catholic priest). The manic energy exhibited by Farley's characters was an extension of how he dealt with the world at large. But as Farley's friend and colleague Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) observes, you can't live your whole life as if you were performing on a stage.

I Am Chris Farley Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Virgil Films' 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray presents the digitally photographed talking-head interviews with detailed clarity. Vintage clips of Chris Farley's TV appearances look as good as the sources will allow. The film has been mastered at an average bitrate of 19.99 Mbps, which is fine for a digitally originated project consisting almost entirely of interviews.

I Am Chris Farley Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's original 5.1 soundtrack, encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA, is a front-centered affair that gives priority to the interview subjects. As usual with Network Entertainment's documentaries, the scoring has been provided by APM Music, a licensing library.

I Am Chris Farley Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Farley Brothers . . . (And Sister) (1080p; 1.78:1; 20:26): More family memories.



• Photo Gallery

I Am Chris Farley Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Any fan of Chris Farley will want to experience this "origin story". The Blu-ray is particularly of interest because of the additional twenty-minute segment of family stories and the family photos, which are not available elsewhere.