Sundance review: 'On the Count of Three' channels the explosive mix of actor Christopher Abbott and director/star Jerrod Carmichael

‘On the Count of Three’

★★★1/2

Appearing in the U.S. Dramatic competition of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Can be streamed through the festival digital portal on Sunday, January 31. Running time: 84 minutes.

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Director-actor Jerrod Carmichael’s high-wire act of a movie “On the Count of Three” is a breathtaking example of what might be a new genre: The action buddy dramedy.

Carmichael plays Val, who reacts to his boss’ offer of a promotion at the garden-supply business by trying to hang himself in the men’s room with his own belt. When that fails, Val goes to see his best friend, Kevin (Christopher Abbott), a live-wire who’s in a psych ward after trying to swallow a bottle of pills three days earlier.

Val helps Kevin escape the psych ward, and they drive off with a plan to shoot each other dead behind a strip club. In the moment, though, Kevin says he wants to have one last free day to do all the things they never had a chance to do — and then kill themselves.

What follows is a breakneck story, written by Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch, in which all the demons of Val’s and Kevin’s past get confronted one last time. This involves encounters with Tiffany Haddish, J.B. Smoove and Henry Winkler, all taking on roles defiantly outside their typecasting.

Carmichael, as a director, takes on the bumpy terrain of his difficult subject matter — suicide, racism, domestic violence, sexual abuse — by speeding right over them, making the audience feel every jolt along the way. Somehow it works, because Carmichael refuses to let them be minimized or swept under the rug.

What carries “On the Count of Three” are the paired performances of Carmichael and Abbott. Carmichael, best known for his sitcom “The Carmichael Show” and his Netflix standup specials, is the chill half of the duo, though his rage and regrets surface at the appropriate times. Abbott, a prolific character actor recently seen in “Possessor” and “Black Bear,” erupts with frenetic energy that perfectly corresponds to Carmichael’s cool. Together, they’re a volatile mix that propels this tough but engrossing film like a rocket.