Brandon Trost’s An American Pickel is a comedy with so much promise that is squandered on a narrative that never fully commits to any of the 15 different directions it tries to take and stumbles so terribly in the final act that there’s no possibility for it to recover. While it hits all the beats of a traditional Seth Rogan bromance, the connective tissue that gets us from beat to beat is missing, leaving the entire experience unsatisfying. And then there are these feints into Being There territory – the moments they almost pull off a great satire on American politics and what it means to confront the ugliness of American history – but the filmmakers are never willing to commit to a theme or an idea and see it through to the end. The final attempt at pathos and heart-tugging is manipulative, cloying, and unearned – ripping us out of the story they’ve been trying to tell. Yes, there are a few sweet moments and bits of humor scattered throughout, but it’s a deeply flawed film that could had the potential to be so much more.