Ike Barinholtz has come a long way from his MADtv days. The comedian has both written for and co-starred in The Mindy Project, which just wrapped up its final season on Hulu. And he was one of the stars of one of 2018's funniest movies: Blockers. Now, he's getting his shot at writing and directing his first movie.
The Oath is a political satire, which is pretty ambitious for a debut feature. There are a lot of ways it can go wrong and only a few ways in which it can go right. Thankfully, he's assembled an incredible cast to handle the material. In the film, all Americans have until the day after Thanksgiving to sign a loyalty pledge to the President of the United States. Now, the film doesn't make it clear if its our president or a fictional one, but it's safe to say it will touch on a lot of current hot-button issues.
Ike plays Chris, an idealistic liberal married to the more level-headed Kai (Tiffany Haddish). Their already tense Thanksgiving gets even worse when two federal agents (Billy Magnussen and John Cho) show up at their house. The rest of the cast includes Nora Dunn (Saturday Night Live), Carrie Brownstein (Portlandia) and Chris Ellis (who's been in everything from Apollo 13 to The Dark Knight Rises).
The Oath opens Friday, October 12.
About Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about.
I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague.
Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work.
In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo.
I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.
