Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong are stoner comedy legends, with a successful stage act, comedy albums, and films like Up in Smoke and Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie essentially codifying tropes for the subgenre before going their separate ways for a time in the late 1980s. In popularizing the stoner comedy, the duo directly or indirectly paved the way for a wide array of classics, including The Big Lebowski, Superbad, Pineapple Express, and The Beach Bum. With Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie, they finally get a long overdue documentary. It’s a breezy, charming, insightful look into the thoughts, feelings, and falling out of a pair of comedy legends.
What is ‘Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie’ About?

Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie began from failure. David Bushell was queued up to produce a new Cheech & Chong film and direct a separate project, but neither landed, so Bushell pivoted to create a documentary biopic of the pair that traces their origins into the present day, framed around the pair going on a long desert road trip. There are animated segues, interviews, and clips aplenty, with Cheech and Chong narrating throughout. It’s an insightful look into the comedian’s background and their thoughts and feelings about the journey.
‘Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie’ Is a Breezy Look at Two Comedy Legends Hashing It Out

Image via Keep Smokin’

Bushell makes two stylistic choices that elevate Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie. First, the project’s breezy inclusion of animation, stand-up, and other forms into the project feels right at home in the pair’s career. It’s an easy, laid-back route that makes for a fun watch. Second, to have it narrated in the first person by the duo themselves adds insight and authenticity to the project. They have an easygoing dynamic that lends a lot of charm, and framing it on a desert road trip adds an intimate personal touch to the project’s tone. There’s a danger with this approach, of course. Few subjects have sufficient self-reflection and thick skin to participate in a critical documentary, so there’s a tendency to pull punches when subjects are involved. Not here, fortunately.
Having equal inclusion of the pair allows them to give honest insight, subjective interpretations of events, and Bushell features those different interpretations of events instead of shying away from them. Both interlocutors are honest about The Corsican Brothers, their final live-action film collaboration riffing on the Alexandre Dumas novella, interrogating their respective grievances that led to their mutual departure. It’s honest while sidestepping the harshness that such conversations can provoke–even when arguing, there’s a muted element that comes with maturity and translates well to the screen.

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It slides a little quickly through major early-career events in the duo’s careers at times. Fans looking for a deeper insight into classic films might be left wanting to a degree. That said, anyone hoping to get a better look at Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin, both as people and as performers, will likely be pleased. Both are open books throughout, leading to quotable and engaging quips like Chong’s “when you do acid with a lady, prepare to spend the rest of your life with her.” Their continuous banter and brief individual asides provide ample quotable one-liners alongside revealing windows into thoughts, feelings, and events, anchored by past interviews and performances. It’s a doc that leaves one feeling much more informed about the entertainers, all packaged within an enjoyable ride.
If This Is Their ‘Last Movie,’ It’s A Great Curtain Call

Image via Paramount Pictures

If Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie is actually their last movie (a plausible hypothesis given that their last live-action feature together was back in 1984), it’s a great curtain call. It’s a breezy, engaging, but still informative look at the duo and their falling out, and it ends on a note that’s surely welcome for fans of their comedic oeuvre. As with any car trip, there are roads not taken, and it could dig deeper into certain moments in their personal lives or behind the scenes of classics. That said, the format chosen for this outing did provide a certain feeling of openness, a lightness of tone, and the impression of being in a car with the duo in a vulnerable state. All together, it’s a brilliant choice that brings the pair together on the big screen for the first time in a while. It’s still a shame that’s taken so long, but it was almost worth the wait. It’s a fantastic and revealing celebration of two comedy legends.
Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie is now in theaters.

Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie

‘Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie’ is an intimate yet charming ride-along with two comedy legends.

Release Date

April 25, 2025

Runtime

123 minutes

Director

David L. Bushell

Pros & Cons

The intimate road trip format provides an engaging yet revealing tone to the doc, giving ample insight into both performers.
Both Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong are open and earnest in their discussions, sidestepping certain perils that often attend biopics that involve their subjects.
It’s well edited, incorporating clips and interludes well while maintaining an excellent pace and progression through their career together.

As much as it’s insightful about the duo’s personal reflections, there could be more behind-the-scenes detail about their projects themselves.