The Four Rascals

Meddling only makes things worse in Tran Thanh’s odd, disjointed comedy

“Sacrifice is a very cruel word to teach women.”

Comedy is subjective. It always has been. What I find uproariously funny, many others likely won’t. What is less subjective, however, is that genuinely the audience has to be somewhat in a good mood in order to enjoy those jokes. And it’s hard to stay in a good mood when a film spends its first half aimlessly doing nothing, and being generally kind of irritating. Such is, unfortunately, the case for The Four Rascals.

The titular four rascals are … well, it’s hard to tell. The film centres on the relationship between Quoc Anh (Tran Quoc Anh) and his not-quite-wife Quynh Anh (Tran Tieu Vy). She runs a social media account documenting their relationship, which is often rocky thanks to her incredible jealousy. When Quoc Anh lands a new banking client, the beautiful Karen (Nguyen Cao Ky Duyen). Quynh Anh becomes immediately jealous, and things go immediately wrong once her friends and family get involved, leading to Quynh and Quoc breaking up.

The Four Rascals is a long old film, clocking in at a mind-numbing 133 minutes, which is altogether way too long for a silly comedy about a not-quite love triangle. The story goes on for about 45 minutes before anything resembling a plot shows itself, and it’s well over an hour before they break up and Quynh opens a restaurant and a Villain reveals itself.

It’s a struggle to watch, honestly. These sorts of timelines are fine if the characters are interesting, funny and likeable but no one in The Four Rascals is. Quynh Anh is the biggest issue here, as her bonkers level of jealousy and her lack of trust in her partner makes her a completely unwatchable protagonist. Her friends and family – nerdy Kieu (Uyen An), her Uncle Eleven (Tran Thanh) and Aunty Bon (Le Giang) – sometimes joined by pseudo-psychic Jessica (Le Duong Bao Lam) only stoke these flames further, making Quoc Anh the only remotely likeable person for what is easily the first hour of the film.

Writer-director Tran Thanh is also the actor who plays the comic relief Uncle Eleven, and he’s given himself a decent enough role. As a performer, he’s pretty good and often funny. As a director he has a good eye, especially when dealing with Karen and her questionable motives, but as a writer he’s in serious need of an editor or two. Everyone else is a very capable actor, especially Nguyen as Karen, but they’re working against a script that’s doing everything to make them as unpleasant as possible.

The Four Rascals has a lot of threads that could work together to make a coherent story. It’s so close so often, but never quite hits right. It takes too long to get to where it wants to go, and by the time it starts actually telling its story you’ve already sat through so much unfunny schtick and less-than-stellar character work. There are better jealousy-fuelled love triangle farces out there, and they won’t take up nearly as much of your time.

Verdict: The hints of good storytelling peppered throughout make Four Rascals all that more frustrating, but it’s really not worth sitting through it

Overall entertainment: 4.5/10
Violence: 3/10
Sex: 1/10
Jokes: A few chuckles/10
Reasonable characters: Maybe one
Kieu: Not remotely ugly, she just has glasses
Four Rascals: I genuinely don’t know. My guess is it must be Quynh, Kieu and the Uncle and Aunty. Your guess is as good as mine.

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The Four Rascals (2025)
Vietnamese

Director: Tran Thanh
Writer: Tran Thanh

CAST

Tran Tieu Vy – Quynh Anh
Tran Anh – Quoc Anh
Tran Thanh – Uncle Eleven
Le Giang – Aunty Bon
Ky Duyen Cao Nguyen – Karen
Uyen An – Kieu
Le Duong Bao Lam – Jessica