Freddy Got Fingered (2001)

I write this review as penance for spending money on this movie and maybe being partly responsible for any sequel. For these crimes against humanity, I am truly sorry.

The critics universally rapped the knuckles of Freddy Got Fingered. That in itself shouldn’t be surprising. “T & A” movies and “gross out” movies or, more generally, “guy flicks,” as they’re commonly—and insultingly (to men) called—are directed primarily at the lower halves and even lower standards of salivating teens. They have but one mission and that’s to stoke the fires of adolescent lust and/or love of grossness.

One can rail against them like the “family values” set does, but, like romance novels, they’re here to stay. Most critics realize this and generally give “here-we-go-again” stock bad reviews, informing the parents (those that still care) to steer the kids away and warning other bystanders (those with two brain cells to rub together) to stay away altogether.

And, occasionally, these types of movies are less awful than the genre would imply. I smirked at trailers for Dumb And Dumber. I laughed at parts of South Park. I’m pretty open minded about these things. I have no interest in seeing many of these movies, of course, but I acknowledge that young people go through a period of discovery and these wretched movies are symptomatic of that phase. Hopefully, not long past high school, this stage is largely traversed.

It was then, with eyebrows raised, that I noticed the bottom drop out in the early part of 2001. In a rush to cash in on the success of Dumb And Dumber and There’s Something About Mary, an arms race developed in Hollywood. I noticed a gathering repugnance to the movie reviews I read for these hitherto fairly innocuous teen pics. Like the occasional streak of plane crashes or a flair up of violence in the Philippines, there’s been a rash of ghastly teen pics lately: Naturally, I didn’t see any of these fiascos, but, like the plane crashes, you do notice them in the local fishwrap.

Two movies that garnered deadly venom from the pens of critics in 2001 were Tomcats and Freddy Got Fingered. These movies were trashed like few others in recent memory. When it comes to dropping the bomb on a movie, I consider a zero-star review from Roger Ebert to be the seismic signature of a Jabootu-esque nuclear blast going off at a theatre near you. First of all, Ebert seems to find good in more stinkers than I do; good or middling reviews flow through him like water at times, so a zero-star review is like a visit from the Enola Gay. Secondly, when he does drop Little Boy, it’s usually pretty evocative, as the following segment from his review will attest:

“This movie doesn’t scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.”

Freddy Got Fingered was written and directed by Tom Green, and so in Hell’s video store, we can put it up on the shelf next to such stinkers such as Shatner’s Star Trek: The Final Frontier and Travolta’s Battlefield Earth. The movie’s tagline was “This Time You Can’t Change the Channel,” which is certainly appropriate.

20th Century Fox, seeing the Farrelly brothers cashing in big time with There’s Something About Mary and Kingpin apparently felt the need to fund this, hoping to cash in on the teenage “gross out” genre. It’s interesting to note that this movie is a strong R, so I guess the studio thought it could make money with just the over-18 set because we all know how rigorously the American movie ratings are enforced.

In Apocalypse Now, Capt. Willard says that he cannot tell the story of Col. Kurtz without telling his own. Since this movie left me staring slack-jawed at the ceiling in my darkened room afterwards, wondering, much like Sheen’s tormented Captain, if life was truly for me, I’m in the same predicament he was: I cannot tell the story of Freddy Got Fingered without telling a bit of my own.

First off, I’ve been a back-pew lurker at the temple of Jabootu for some time now, and I’ve always wanted to do a review. Secondly, the genesis of this particular exercise in masochistic misadventure of Mothra-like magnitude can be firmly, if tangentially, placed on the shoulders of Mr. Ken Begg himself. No, I’ve never met our gracious host. No, he didn’t twist my arm to write this piece. However, while I respect the man’s willpower, I was somewhat chagrined at his audacity. How so?

Well, when I read Mr. Begg’s screamingly funny review of The Promise, in which he well and truly went boldly where no man has gone before, I stupidly fell prey, once again, to my rural redheaded, tree-climbing, anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better tomboyishness.

The one and only Steele novel I’ve ever read was The Promise, and it was piffle. I can only describe the feeling I got from reading it by conjuring up that gooey red syrupy sludge inside a chocolate-covered cherry cordial. But I thought: if Ken can sit through The Promise and then crow about it; if a man can summon up the courage to not only critique a ‘chick flick’ but a putrid, gelatinous one based on a Steele novel I once myself gagged over; if an estrogen-challenged interloper dared to try to understand the unknowable, I could surely stomach 93 minutes of the reverse

Is there anything else to cover here before the opening…um…credits” roll? Well, two things. As I confessed to earlier, I actually saw this in the theatre. I wanted to see it on a weekend. I called a number of my guy friends and explained my mission. “Uh, I have to work on Sunday,” was the most popular BS excuse I got. One of them said, and I quote verbatim: “Uh…um…I have to…get the mail.” They were all over 25, you see. Both in age and IQ.

Then, despairing, I called my girlfriends. (And, if any of them are reading: no, the ‘washing your hair’ excuse only flies with guys. Thanks for being there for me.) My sister just laughed and said “good luck.” I almost put the whole thing off, but how many times does Ebert drop the big zero-star Fat Man on a movie? How often do I get a block of time to do something like this?

So I thought: Who knows? Maybe it won’t turn out to be painfully humiliating. And so I went. Alone.

“Alone. That’s the key word. Murder doesn’t hold a candle to it and hell is a poor substitute.”

-Stephen King, Salem’s Lot.

If it seems like I’m dithering and trying to not talk about actually watching this thing, you’re right. But, like a trip to the dentist, it can’t be put off anymore. One more tidbit bears mentioning while the captain is putting on the seatbelt sign and we’re grabbing our headphones and airsickness bags.

When I went to the local theatre, I approached the ticket window all by my lonesome and with no small measure of self-consciousness dogging my footsteps. It was a weekday matinee, yet there seemed to be a sizable crowd at the old multiplex. I got to the front of the line and there was the pimply-faced boy from The Simpson‘s waiting behind the thick Plexiglas with his speakerphone turned way up:

“Um…hello…um…one for the 1:35 movie.”
“The what!?”
“The movie with…um…Rip Torn.”
“Who!?”
“The movie with Julie Hagerty?”
“Who?!”
“The movie with…that guy who’s on MTV.”
“What?!”

*sigh*

“One for…Freddie got Fingered.”

And then, right on cue:

“One for Freddy Got Fingered!!! Here ya go!!!”

I have not the words.

**************************

We open with Tom Green lying on his bed, babbling imagined dialogue of the animation stills he has drawn. The characters range from SuperCat with his X-ray eyes that only see through wood, to talking beavers, to a magical banana. Like any bad jokester, he’s cracking himself up with his…uh…homespun mirth, while everyone else (me and the ten or so other people in the audience) just stare silently.

In this one scene, in ten seconds flat, I see almost the entire paper-thin depth of Green’s comedy technique: say the line over and over again, increasing in pitch until he’s shouting, and screwing up his face in the kind of distorted way we all do in front of the vanity mirror. That’s it. That, and hopping about flapping his arms.

This goes on awhile, until we move on to the opening credit sequence, Green skateboarding through a mall while the first of several good songs to be sullied, in this case the Sex Pistol’s “Problems,” is blared. Of course, Green is chased by mall security. And of course, he leaves chaos in his wake. Low budget Blues Brothers, really. And here also we see the first cruel scene, the pursuing mall cop running full tilt into an elderly gentleman with a walker, sending him sprawling. Ho ho. Stop it, you’re killing me.

Green escapes and arrives at the bus station. Here we meet his family, who hail him as “Gord.” Rip Torn plays Mr. Brody, Gord’s father. Yep, Rip Torn, veteran of over a hundred movies and the Larry Sanders Show. And here he is, ladies and gentleman, the winner, I decree, of the Embarrassed Actor award—the ‘Jobu’—for the year 2001. All I have to say is: this isn’t the Rip Torn I grew up with. I don’t know who this man is. Mrs. Brody is Julie Hagerty.

I like Julie Hagerty. Her hovering ditz act is good, and I loved her in What About Bob, one of my favorite comedies—a clever, sweet, kindhearted movie made in another galaxy from this one. Julie! Julie! No! What are you doing here? Good camera work through—the guns aimed at Torn and Hagerty to keep them on the set are cleverly concealed. Also included is Gord’s younger brother, Freddy. (Uh oh. I don’t like the sound of that. The “Freddy” the movie’s title refers to actually exists. This could be baaaad news.)

It seems Gord is finally leaving home at age 28. He’s taking the bus to L.A. to make it big as an animator. It’s the obligatory tearful departure scene, the script written by computer. Robots could have performed it. Papa Brody calls Gord back from the bus and proudly hands him the keys to a Chrysler LeBaron convertible.

Freddy is put out. He’s got a job and Gord is a loser. He never got a car. They argue. Blah blah blah. Gord responds by saying, “Where’s YOUR LeBaron?” over and over again as his annoying falsetto builds into a crescendo and his face distorts like a third-rate Jim Carrey (and think about that). Finally, Gord drives off, his proud parents waving and shouting “Goodbye!” as he departs.

Now, what do you think they do when he turns a corner and is finally out of sight? That’s right, the scriptwriters pull another dead rabbit out of the hat: the shopworn “parents cheer when the kid is out of sight” ploy, as seen in a dozen movies and a few dozen more TV commercials, generally in “off to college” or “off to camp” scenes.

Breathlessly moving from one moldy oldie to another, we now see a map of the western U.S. seaboard and a line following Gord’s progress south from Portland to L.A. A line that, I’ll pedantically point out knowing the desert west like I do, seems to follow no actual main road in reality. Another kitschy classic is skewered, as Gary Numan’s “Cars” plays in the background, taking me back to far, far, better times when I believed in Santa Claus and St. Augustine’s theories on the goodness of humanity.

And now, the movie becomes a grudge match. Eva vs. the Movie. Gord speeds past a horse farm. One excited stallion is being handled across a lot by four cowboys and Gord sees the horse’s penis. He then screeches to a stop, vaults the fence, grabs the horse’s penis and begins to yank on it, screeching “I’m a FARMER!” over and over again in that astoundingly unfunny squeal of his.

(Personal note: I’m a budding horse vet. It’s as if Tom Green reached into my head and, like a warped version of Sybok’s mind trick in Star Trek: the Final Frontier, did the exact thing that would steam me the most. I saw red. With all due disrespect Tom, take it from someone who knows: if you had done that in real life, those four ranchers {not ‘farmers’ Tom, ranchers} would have pulled your spine out of your mouth.)

Editor Ken: I imagine the horse might have had something to say about it as well.

Next we arrive in L.A. Typical “arriving in L.A.” scenes flash by—the Hollywood sign on the mountain, palm trees, tall blonde women—you know the drill. “I Gotta Be Me” is playing in the background, Sammy Davis Jr. crooning merrily. (Hey, what’s that spinning sound?) Gord gets a job in a sandwich sweatshop, putting slices of cheese on buns as they pass by on a conveyor belt—doing, in fact, what Tom Green should be doing in real life.

Gord leaps on the conveyor belt, swinging a huge salami around like it’s an extension of his naughty bits, yelling in that stupid voice, “Ding Dong! Ding Dong! Ding Dong!” Curiously, the other people working on the sandwich assembly line just ignore Gord during this puerile exhibition—doing, in fact, what everybody should be doing to Tom Green in real life.

Anyway, break time at the sandwich sweatshop. Gord goes to “Radioactive Animation,” a studio in a swanky glass building. Gord bluffs his way past the guards by blathering and yelling incoherently.

The guards, being movie guards, act stupid and befuddled, kowtowing to this ploy. (Your Auntie Eva suggests not trying this ruse with real guards, kids, particularly after 9/11.) Up in Radioactive Animation’s nice digs, Gord is confronted by the secretary, played by Drew Barrymore. Once again, the camera work is well done, concealing the alien mind control rays that must bathe her in a sickly light when the cameras aren’t rolling.

Gord plays the babbling, pushy clown to get past her, (what a reach!) In the process, he draws from her the boss’s name, David Davidson. (My rib! My rib! What a side-splitter!) Then, in a scene of stunning imbecility, he tells Drew that Mr. Davidson’s wife is dead. Drew cries out, “Linda is dead!?” and starts to bawl in an unconvincing fashion. Gord discovers that Mr. Davidson is himself out to lunch at a nice local restaurant.

Her histrionics go on for a while, and then Gord tries to hit on her. She screams at him to leave her alone while she mourns, throwing around the same boring, old profanity that mars most movies these days. This is all supposed to be very funny, but instead the scene drones on with the deadening knell of a congressional debate on farm subsidies.

Cut to the nice restaurant. We see Mr. David Davidson at a table, all by his lonesome, on a cell phone. He’s talking in the obligatory “I’m-a-bigwig” movie cell phone power-palaver. You know what I mean. “So-and-so is fired! Ya hear me? FIRED!” and “Transfer ten million to my Swiss bank account!” and “Prepare my Lear Jet,” that sort of thing.

In case you’re so dense that light bends around you—and Lord knows you must be to watch this (Ipse Dixit)—this is to show that Mr. Davidson is a big shot. Actually he’s just Anthony Michael Hall. Boy, has he changed since Sixteen Candles! Heck, since the dreadfully dull Out Of Bounds, for that matter. Anthony Michael Hall sort of looks like Alex Lifeson from Rush now, a cherub with some mileage and heft. I think he’s going bald.

Gord staggers into the restaurant wearing an English bobby’s uniform. He’s yelling for Mr. Davidson, making quite a scene. Ever notice that police rarely appear in these movies? I call it the Pulp Fiction Effect. In real life, Gord would have been tossed out on his ear. But, of course, not here. Anyway, the has-been meets the never-was, and Gord breathlessly dives into his pitch.

Alex…I mean Anthony Michael Hall…is nonplussed and put off—understandably, I would think. Gord soon chases Anthony Michael Hall outside with his weirdness, where Anthony Michael Hall must endure more of Gord’s blatherings while the valet gets his Ferrari. Gord pulls out a gun, sticks it in his quacker, and threatens to kill himself. (Yes! Yes!) Finally getting a word in edgewise, Anthony Michael Hall….

That’s it! That’s the last time I’m typing out the full name of a prima donna actor who goes by his or her full, birth-certificate name! No more! You think your full name is such hot stuff, Tony? Get your mouth around this: Evangeline Galadriel Vandergeld! There’s not a marquee in the nation that can hold it! Put that in lights, geekboy! I’ll take you down!

Ahem.

Right. Like I was saying, Mr. Davidson (Tony Hall) finally tells Gord (insufferable loser) that, while his drawings are acceptable, the storyline that goes with them (something about a cat with limited X-ray eyes) is lacking (understatement). All of this is done with a generous dose of swearing, making the scene even more infantile.

Editor Ken: Indeed. As everyone knows, swearing is only really funny when done by an innocent-looking old lady. Then it’s hysterical. Every damn time.

His Italian steed finally at hand, Mr. Davidson tells Gord to try harder, to “get inside” the animals he’s drawing and, if that doesn’t work, to then kill himself. Then it’s back to obscurity for Tony as he speeds off, presumably taking the Ferrari back to the dealership 20th Century rented it from. (Actually, he’ll appear once more, but we’ll set charges on that bridge when we come to it.)

So it’s back on the road again, with the line traveling back north on the map. Now comes another strikingly awful scene. While traveling through a redwood forest, Gord comes across the fresh carcass of a road kill deer. In an effort to “get inside” the deer, as Mr. Davidson suggested, Gord pulls a hunting knife and slits the deer’s abdominal cavity open, sending a cascade of glistening intestines flooding out. He then skins the deer and dons the bloody pelt. This is followed by him…well, can you guess? I don’t want to keep seeing the same hands. That’s right, Gord then starts to gibber and roar unintelligibly while staggering around and screwing up his features as he mugs his gore-smeared face for the camera. This is supposed to make us laugh. The song “I’m Like To Teach the World to Sing” is cued especially for this performance. Oh my. Drew, we need to have a long talk. The term “howlingly bad” sometimes comes off as mere hyperbole, but in this case it is not only appropriate but also literally true.

Well, here comes a semi carrying logs. It jams on the brakes, stopping in a remarkably short distance, but still hits deer-clad Gord. He’s sent sprawling. The trucker—who I think provides some of the best acting in this whole mess in expressing concern—gets out and runs up to see if Gord is alright. (Road Kill! Road Kill!) But, of course, Gord springs up, laughing crazily. (Rats!)

He continues north in the LeBaron. Another song is ruined as “We’re a Happy Family” by the Ramones plays as he drives back by the same horse farm and ogles the outsized genitals of the stallions. [Remember to breathe Eva…in, out…in, out. Focus your eyes…]

Gord arrives back in Portland, his luckless hometown. A small neighbor boy named Andy, a tyke of about six, happily waves at the arriving Gord and runs up to the car. The car hits the boy, sending him staggering back with a torrent of blood pouring from his mouth. He’s screaming in agony as his distraught father rushes out and leads him away. Gord continues on. Then we go to the next scene.

*blink blink*

What in the world!? What was that supposed to be about? Someone sitting in front of me left the theatre at this point, picking up his jacket and drink and leaving. As he walked by, I had to look away.

Alright. O.K. We see Gord’s parents setting down to an unappetizing-looking platter of roast beef. Rip mutters under his breath. Hagerty tries to placate him. Gord comes in and sits down. He and Rip argue over whether Gord will eat the roast beef or a chicken sandwich Gord bought earlier. Every other word in their exchange rhymes with “duck.” They almost come to blows. Rip throws Gord’s chicken sandwich to the salivating dogs orbiting the table and sends Gord to his room. Home is where the hate is, I guess.

Not listening, Gord goes outside. In the driveway is a wooden half-pipe for skateboarding. It’s now apparently late in the evening. Gord is hammering in a few final nails. A friend of Gord’s, Darren, is hanging out with him. He tells Gord to keep it down—the hammering is going to awake the whole neighborhood. Gord says he doesn’t care. He pulls out a nail gun and loudly slams a couple more nails home.

Rip, in his jammies, opens his bedroom window and lets out a blue streak. Gord answers with one of his own. The neighbor, father of the injured boy, comes out and (quite sensibly) tells them to keep it down. Gord’s answer is unprintable. Gord then hands his friend a skateboard and tells him to try out their newly completed masterpiece. His friend promptly takes a mild digger and starts screaming. The camera lovingly pans in on a bloody compound fracture, the bones sticking out of his right leg.

In the background, a punk song, sounding like Green Day, begins to pound merrily away, signaling to the over-18 audience (R rating, remember?) that this is supposed to be funny and exciting. Rip, incensed at the screaming, stomps out of the house and hurls the skateboard at the dismal duo. Can you guess where in lands? Can you? Right on the fracture. More screaming.

Then, to my unalloyed displeasure, the camera pans in to show Gord licking the wound and sucking on the bloody stump of bone while his friend screams away and Rip tears lose with more profanity. Mom Brody peers anxiously from the bedroom window. Then the screen was rudely blocked by the shadows of two more figures scurrying out of the theatre. Dante! Virgil! Down in front!

A new day dawns. Gord is going to the hospital to see his injured friend, Darren. At the nurses’ station, he asks the room number from your standard-issue attractive movie blonde sitting at the desk. She turns out to be a doctor—just like in Road House!—with an annoying laugh. They have a little meet cute.

Of course, it’s moronic because this is a Tom Green movie, with Gord giving advice on how to flip a coffee creamer with your finger. Her name is Betty (played by Marisa Coughlan). She must be an idiot savant, because she happily gives her number to him. Then she rolls away on her wheelchair, her paraplegic status unknown until now. Gord looks crestfallen at this development.

Editor Ken: Are they implying that handicapped people have to settle for the likes of Tom Green?! This must be actionable under the ADA, right? Right?!

OK, I watched this next scene while peeking through my fingers so my narrative may get a little sketchy. Moving on to Darren’s room, we see that he’s sharing a room with three women. The two across the room look to be elderly American Indian women. The woman in the bed next to Darren is heavily pregnant. Did you hear me? Heavily pregnant.

*sigh*

Raise your hand if know what’s going to happen next. Yep. But first, Darren and Gord discuss the blonde doctor, Betty. Gord is put out that she’s a paraplegic and fires away with some cripple comments. Ho ho. Darren calls him on it. Gord grabs Darren’s broken leg, which is up in traction, and twists on it, causing his buddy to scream in pain. Ah, what comradeship. But, I guess that’s what fiends are for.

Anyway, the pregnant woman literally screams the ‘F’ word as loud as she can while telling F-ing Gord that she’s F-ing pregnant and to shut the F up. A wordy wordsmith worthy of Wordsworth, indeed. Boy, what madcap zaniness, huh? Ya see, she’s a sweet PREGNANT woman, soon to be a MOTHER, but she’s screaming vulgarities at the top of her voice. Ha ha ha. Isn’t that a knee-slapper? Doesn’t that just make you fall about the place, grasping your sides?

Editor Ken: Wait, was she an innocent-looking elderly pregnant woman? Man, my sides hurt just thinking about it!!

Well, the inevitable happens. She goes into labor and Gord tries to save the day by delivering the baby himself. Darren is yelling, the woman is screaming. Then, the two Indian women across the room (and I’m not making this up!) pull out ceremonial drums and start beating them while emitting some tribal rant. Despite the commotion, no hospital staff members come to help or even investigate. I see that the Pulp Fiction Effect also applies to the medical field as well.

Alright, I’m having awful flashbacks now so let me type this quickly. Gord yanks the baby out, grabs the still-attached umbilical cord and bites through it. This is filmed in a close up, with Gord chewing his way through it like he’s snapping into a Slim Jim while gore squirts in his face. Throwing a couple more gallons of high-octane nightmare fuel on the fire, he then swings the baby over his head by the cord while hollering “wakey wakey!” As an aside, the umbilical cord is longer than the air tubes the astronauts used in the ’70s for space walks.

Blood is splattered everywhere—on the walls, on the mother, on the other patients. Watching this, I had a look on my face like I’d just seen my sister’s cat playing the bassoon. Really, it’s a scene that just rips the screams right out of your throat. Finally we see Gord being led out and told never to come back as he prattles about saving the day. Betty the doctor waves to him as he goes.

So…evening comes and it’s date time. Gord arrives at Betty’s pad. She’s out of her hospital whites and into a cocktail dress. Her laugh, however, is as annoying as ever. Gord notices that she has some model rockets and inquires about them. She says she’s also a rocket scientist. Uh huh. Her big dream is to design a rocket-propelled wheelchair.

After some more of Gord’s amazing unfunny blatherings and a few more gales of her grating laughter, she announces that instead of going out, she wants Gord to take a wooden club she keeps handy and beat her disabled legs. This, she explains, makes them “tingle.” Gord is a little hesitant at first, just tapping her legs. Betty isn’t impressed. She plays the “what are you, some kind of wimp?” card, egging him on.

Soon, he’s wailing away like she’s a pinata and he’s on cocaine, an evil look on his idiotic face. Then he smashes her in the face as hard as he can. The movie is kind enough to enhance the sounds, so this beating sounds like a Bruce Lee slugfest. She bursts into tears, hiding her injured features. Gord, of course, isn’t in a hurry to apologize. Actually I can’t remember what they say at this point because both times I watched this part, I was in my happy place. Wheee! Pretty colors!

Of course, there’s not a mark on her. Movie Magic! But, in like ten seconds, she forgets about getting bashed to the face and decides it’s time for Gord to be rewarded. Slithering to new depths, the movie’s script then has her reach for Gord’s trousers and happily demand the opportunity to give him oral sex. She pulls up his shirt and Lo! part of the umbilical cord from the previous afternoon’s excitement is taped to Gord’s stomach. This sequence, like many in this sick flick, is the bad movie equivalent of being pummeled by Evander Holyfield—it’s not just one awful thing, it’s a flurry of lefts and rights of disgustingness that send the viewer into punch-drunk catatonia. This utterly revolting development apparently doesn’t faze Betty a bit. As the camera pans away, we hear Gord’s fly being undone and Betty’s giggling.

A new day dawns. Freddy and his parents are eating breakfast. Freddy has a job at a bank. Rip and Freddy exchange banal talk: “Going to be a busy day at the bank today, son?” “I hope so, Dad!” and so on. Isn’t it great when bad movies tread water like this? Soon, (but not soon enough) Freddy leaves. Rip yells at Mom Brody (Hagerty) inquiring where his loser son is. She replies that he’s still in the shower. Rip is angered. He’s going to waste all the water! Rip goes downstairs, blunders into Gord’s bathroom, and rips open the shower door. Thankfully, Gord is in a red wetsuit. Rip colorfully asks what is it exactly that Gord is doing. Gord holds up a soap-on-a-rope and says he’s found a “treasure.” Rip grabs him by the shoulder and throws him down, violently ripping off the shower door and sending the “treasure” pinwheeling into the toilet. Gord panics, yelling about how he needs to “save the treasure”! He rights his mask and oxygen tube and jams his head into the toilet. After splashing around a moment, he resurfaces with his “treasure” in hand. It’s the script of this movie! Ha. Kidding. It’s just the soap. Hey, since everybody in this nightmare is so into potty humor, here’s some of my own: this scene is only slightly less wince-inducing than passing Triscuits whole.

Ya know, when the going gets this awful, minds have a tendency to wander. Watching this at home the second time with my sister and her friend, someone made the comment—well, there were a bunch of comments actually – “ick!” and “this is awful!” and “turn this off!” were popular for example—that one of the many attributes of the wonderful film Boogie Nights was the confidence with which the screenwriter rubbed the viewer’s face in the utter dearth of talent possessed by the hacks populating the screen. Contrast that film with this one. This is the best Green and the scriptwriters can do to make us laugh. This is it. Right here in the toilet.

Moving on! Gord and Freddy are eating breakfast together again. Freddy calls him a loser. Gord says Freddy is a loser also. After all, he still comes home to eat breakfast. Ah, Freddy retorts, he’s at least got a job and Gord doesn’t. Gord replies that he isn’t going to let himself become just another suit-wearing working stiff like his brother, so take that Freddy. Well Gord, we all become what we hate (raising the worrying possibility that I’ll wake up one day to find Courtney Love in the mirror).

Whatever. OK, now we see Rip pull into the driveway in his work truck after (apparently) a long day. He emerges muttering about his worthless son who doesn’t have a job. Or maybe he’s muttering about this movie’s worthless director who does. Going inside, he hears a noise. Back in the bedroom, Gord is dressed in a suit. Only the suit is on backwards and Gord is singing some ditty about being the “backwards man” who can “walk backwards as fast you can.” This is accompanied by Green doing his stupid duckwalk and all the usual pratfalls we’ve seen a hundred times before. Yawn. Rip walks in through a cloud of hollered profanity. He wonders what the *bleeping* *bleep* Gord is *bleeping* doing in his *bleeping* suit. (Rip Torn is short and stocky while Tom Green looks like a tall, goateed weasel, and yet somehow the suit fits.) Gord replies that he got a *bleeping* job at a computer firm working the night shift and can he borrow $50.00 to buy supplies. Gord’s father, his IQ apparently rivaled by room temperatures in Siberia, buys this load of *bleep*! He’s so proud he gives Gord $100.00 and says he was just a late bloomer.

Back to Betty’s place. Another caning is in progress, with her lying on the bed cooing in delight. When this is done to her satisfaction, she again reaches for his jeans. Gord pulls away and goes into this song and dance about how he is sick of all the sex and wants to go out instead. Eventually, Betty agrees.

Cut to a posh restaurant, not unlike the one in The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover. A string quartet is playing Vivaldi, waiters in starched collars are hustling around plates of expensive food, and nice paintings cover the walls—the works. Gee, does anybody have any idea what might happen in this scene? Let’s see—expensive restaurant filled with “snobby” rich people and Tom Green’s coming to supper. Hmm. It’s a toughie, isn’t it? I’m sure it’ll be subtle and provocative like My Dinner With Andre, right?

At one table, Gord and Betty are seated. Gord is messily eating a whole fish with his fingers—head and all. But only after, of course, attempting to mimic the gaping expression of the fish. I never thought failed humor could be this painfully witless. It’s like a time warp. Five minutes with this guy is like sitting between two smelly people on a Greyhound trip from the Devonian to Judgment Day. Betty asks about his job. Gord strings together a bunch of words like “finance,” “broker,” “stocks,” and “bonds” in an attempt to bamboozle her. Then he smacks down some printouts with some colorful plots that he obviously knows nothing about. Maybe he works for Enron. Then Gord leans over and turns on a tape recorder. It plays the sound of a phone ringing. After two rings, he pretends to answer a cell phone. Except his “cell phone” is an old wireless receiver from the ’80s. Then he starts the movie cell phone power-palaver—yelling that so-and-so is F-ing fired and buy a million shares of this and that and so on. Betty sits impressed through all of this, an imbecilic smile plastered on her vapid face.

Meanwhile, because this is an idiot movie with an idiot plot, guess who else is here? Yep, Gord’s parent’s, Rip and Julie. Rip classily asks the maitre de where he can “spill some urine.” Ha ha, that’ll show those highbrows! Movies like this, and sit-coms also, always attempt to connect with their target audience by having their loser characters put the stuffy bluebloods’ noses out of joint. It’s like a box of “Instant Comedy” that bad writers can fall back on, just add creative desperation! Anyway, on his way to the loo, Rip runs into little Andy and his father. Small world. They exchange greetings. It’s Andy’s birthday. He’s excited to be getting some birthday cake. His doting father is happy for him. Canned emotions, certainly, but the only human ones in this movie, I’m afraid. Further on Rip runs into Gord and Betty.

And they’re off! Rip rips into Gord for not being at his “computer” job. Then he puts 1 and 1 together and divines that Gord really doesn’t have a job. (All that and brains! Ladies, hands off —he’s mine!) Then we get a few cripple jokes for good measure. Gord takes offense. Thus starts the food fight. All the ingredients are there—rich white people getting pasta dumped on them, wines bottles shattering, dessert carts capsizing. Even in it’s hackneyed glory, this scene manages to be senselessly cruel. Andy takes a plate in the chops and suffers what is made to look like a serious laceration. He starts screaming as the blood courses out of him. So…the running gag of this movie is Andy being dealt gruesome trauma to the face. Let’s be blunt. It needs to be said. If this appeals to you, then you don’t have any class. It’s as simple as that. One actual surprise does occur, truth be told. The police arrive and arrest Gord, mercifully ending the scene.

Next day. Betty is chalking up some more frequent loser miles by bailing Gord out of jail. As they walk (and roll) across the parking lot, she says that she not mad Gord lied to her and isn’t a stockbroker and so on. Says you, honey. She drops Gord off at home, where Gord has set up some sort of contraption that’s supposed to allow him to play a keyboard while eating sausage links that are hanging from the ceiling. I’ll make no comment on this except to say his playing is appalling. Freddy, off to the bank, notices that Gord’s drawings aren’t too bad. They seem to center on actual characters like Gord and Rip yelling at one another. Anyway, Gord’s folks come home next and find Gord playing his “sausage organ.” Hey, guess what? More screaming and profanity fly! It’s even funnier the tenth time around! Rip destroys the Rube Goldberg sausage contraption in an all-too-predicable fit of wrath. Mom Brody steps in and cries out, “My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?!”

Whoops, that’s what I was saying. Sorry. She actually says to Rip, “You just go outside and cool off!” Rip stomps off yelling over his shoulder, “If this were Pakistan, you’d have been sewing soccer balls when you were four!” Hey, Rip, if this were Pakistan Gord’s scrawny neck would have met a scimitar long ago. Outside, Rip destroys Gord’s wooden skateboard half-pipe by hitching it to the bumper of his truck and dragging it down the street. Mom Brody bursts into tears. In a scene radiating love, Gord tells her to ease her sorrow by going out and having sex with anyone she wants. It’ll make her feel better.

Next, Gord and his parents are at some kind of family counselor’s office. There’s the usual finger-pointing you’d expect. Of course, Gord deserves the worst of it, being the complete zero he is. In an effort to divert the heat on him, he accuses Rip of “fingering” Freddy—sexual molestation. Hence the title of the movie. Yup, that’s it folks. That’s where they got it. This goes a long way to confirming my pet hypothesis that Tom Green actually didn’t write any script for this before shooting, but rather made it up from day to day. Of course, the social worker buys this eye-rollingly stupid subterfuge. So does Mom Brody, apparently. Well, look at it this way—the fingering takes place only in Gord’s mind and not on the screen.

So far, so bad. But wait, there’s less! Next, the social worker and the police come to the Brody household. They are surprised that Freddy isn’t a little boy. But, despite Freddy’s lame protests, they take him into protective custody like he’s a ten-year-old or something. As Freddy is shoved into the back of a police cruiser, the Brody parents arrive home. There’s a lot of yelling between the social worker and Rip, but eventually the authorities leave with Freddy in tow, leaving the parents to stew. Hey…uh…if you bought the fact that Freddy was a sexually molested minor, wouldn’t Papa Brody be under arrest? Oh, never mind. Mom Brody is now more convinced that Rip is a molester than ever.

Alright. Gord is downstairs working feverishly on a new animation idea. Staggering drunk down the stairs comes Rip with a half-bottle of booze. He stomps in and starts in on Gord with a cascade of slurred oaths. Gord responds in (un)kind. Rip rips up a couple of Gord’s pictures. Gord tells him to F off. Rip hollers, “Oh yeah!?” and then turns around, bends over, and drops his pants. While waving his middle-aged derrière in the air, he challenges Gord to “Stick it right in!” We are treated to a close up of Rip’s brandished posterior.

At this point, I almost ran out of the theatre. I did stir and make a hesitant move towards the aisle. I so desperately wanted to stand up and loudly exclaim to the (thankfully) few people around me…

“I’m a movie-reviewer! I’m…I’m being paid to be here! I got free passes! The SLA locked me in a closet and brainwashed me! I did this on a dare! I’m looking for lost orangutans! I’m a spy and this very seat is a drop for Chinese agents! I’m a truant officer! I’m stuck to the sticky floor! I got confused in the dark and I’m in the wrong theatre!”

“Somebody help me!”

“I’m a madwoman and I’m completely out of my mind!”

“It’s not my faaaauuuult!”

Jake Blues would have been proud. But no, I sat back down again and in an extreme act of willpower, I gripped the armrests tighter and hung on like the Memorex guy. Mom Brody comes down the stairs quietly and sees this spectacle. This, apparently, finally confirms Gord’s allegations of Papa Brody’s indiscretions with Freddy. She runs out, crying. I’m glad somebody can escape.

Next comes a series of quick scenes. First we see Gord get a job at a cheese sandwich shop. He yells at unhappy customers. Not funny. Next, the camera pans across the grounds of some kind of public health facility until we see a sign that labels it the “Institute for Sexually Molested Children.” Inside, we find twenty-something Freddy watching a violent movie with a passel of 8-year-olds. Not funny. Then, back at the Brody abode, Mom Brody is packing her car. She’s leaving her husband: “There’s nothing to talk about! I can’t stand this another minute!” she yells at Mr. Brody. You and me both, Julie. Rip and Julie bellow at one another in the driveway. Across the street, Andy and his dad are playing catch. Distracted by the argument, Andy gets beaned in the face. A close-up provides us with a view of his mangled visage, a tooth sticking through his lip. Third times not the charm, Tom. Still not funny.

Meanwhile, Gord is moping at the cheese sandwich shop. On the TV he sees a news report about how Betty has succeeded in her dream of building a rocket-powered wheelchair. Gord’s teenaged boss comes up to him and yells at him to get back to work. Gord responds with an “inspirational” soliloquy about how if Betty can achieve her dreams, so can he. He’s going back to Hollywood and he’s going to be a world-class animator, dammit! The only thing good about this clichéd-riddled scene is it suggests that this wheezing, stalling movie is finally about to pull into the station with a clichéd-riddled finale.

And so, we find ourselves back in Alex Lifeson’s … er, Mr. Davidson’s office in Hollywood. Gord is trying to sell some asinine idea for an animated series entitled “Zebras in America.” Mr. Davidson seems puzzled. Then, in a classic It’s-In-The-Script moment, Rip appears outside. He pushes Drew Barrymore (the secretary, remember?) through a display and bursts into the office, yelling hoarsely. A meeting of the mindless! First he shoves Gord into a wall, then he belts Mr. Davidson and chases him around the desk. Many vulgarities fly. Then Rip leaves.

Mr. Davidson undergoes a miraculous transformation. He now thinks Gord is a comedic genius, hiring an actor (Rip) to come in and play one of the characters in Gord’s proposed animated series. He gives Gord a check for the big money—a cool million. Yeah, I know. But if it would move them credits up the screen sooner, I’d give him a million myself.

But no. An actual animated bit follows, showing us the finished product of “Zebras in America.” It’s about zebra centaurs with the human portions being Gord and his family. It’s narrated in Tom Green’s voice, twisted up into a fingernails-on-the-blackboard falsetto and is extraordinarily moronic.

Now, we get to see what Gord spends the money on. Please, oh merciful big man in the sky, let this be a quick coda. First, Gord rents a helicopter. As the great Teutonic anthem “Ride of the Valkyries” sacrilegiously thunders, he buzzes Betty’s apartment. Meeting on the roof of her high-rise, he gives her a handful of (obviously glass) jewels. After spilling out the story of his success, he professes his love. “When A Man Loves A Woman” starts playing. I’m touched. I’m moved. Now end this movie! She stares back all starry-eyed and says she just wants to stay home, give up the doctor gig, and give him oral sex all day. Please, somebody, either roll her over the side or roll the credits.

Nope. In the middle of the night, we see Gord in high-tech burglar clothes (IR goggles, padded feet, glass cutters) breaking into his parents’ house. He slips into Rip’s bedroom and raises a gun. Scary music plays. The tension is so thick you could cut it with a sofa cushion. He pulls the trigger. It’s a dart gun. Rip immediately goes down like somebody flipped his ‘off’ switch. (FYI: I’ve used tranquilizer guns. They don’t work that fast.) The next day, we see Gord out talking to the foreman of a construction crew. He’s giving him the last of his money.

In the next scene, Rip groggily wakes up in his own bed. He’s hooked up to an IV drip. Staggering to the window, he looks out and discovers that he’s in Pakistan. Gord had the house taken apart and has put his parent’s bedroom up on a pedestal upon a flatbed trailer and shipped it to Pakistan. I don’t think I need to point out the cataclysmic stupidity involved here, do I? Good. Rip starts with the yelling. Gord hops in the cab of the semi and pulls away at top speed, crashing through the obligatory Middle Eastern marketplace conveniently placed nearby. Quicker than you can yell “Fruit Cart,” however, he rolls the truck. The bedroom-on-a-pedestal topples over as well, landing on Gord.

Both are miraculously OK apparently, as the next scene has Rip chasing Gord into a large tent. Within it is a circus elephant. A male circus elephant. Gord grabs the elephant’s…ah…male apparatus and points it at Rip. Who knew that an orgasmic male elephant could unleash a reproductive blast that looks suspiciously like a large fire extinguisher discharging? Anyway, Rip is blown backward out of the tent, coated in what’s supposed to be elephant semen. I can’t believe I just typed this paragraph.

Outside, Gord drops to his knees next to his now-proud papa and confesses his love. He just wanted to come to Pakistan and sew soccer balls with his father. Rip expresses his paternal love, saying he’s so proud that Gord is now a successful animator. It’s another tearful scene. Then there’s a shot of Gord and Rip being carted away in a wooden cage as prisoners. Hopefully to The Hague where a tribunal awaits them for crimes-against-humanity.

Editor Ken: I don’t know. I’d be willing to trust in Islamic justice in this particular instance.

No such luck. Cut to Shaquille O’Neal’s bedroom. (!!!) He and Mom Brody are snuggling and watching the news. (Remember Gord’s advice about having sex with anybody she wants? Well…) She expresses her concerns for the two clods in Pakistan. Shaq is a little put out that she still cares about them and pouts. (I’m with you, Shaq!) He says, “Yeah? Well, can he do this?!” and bounces around the bed, apparently demonstrating his wild thing technique. This cameo is so off-the-wall that I have to admit I took to giggling. Sorry, but I was slaphappy by this time.

Well, apparently the dysfunctional duo in Pakistan is causing an international incident. We get the trite “newscasts from around the world” sequence, starting with an American broadcaster and moving through every ethnic type. This sequence is seen on a TV at the home for molested children that Freddy is still at, (they’ve added long hair to him in order to denote the passage of time.)

Well, eventual release is at hand, and as a final shot, we see Gord and Mr. Brody coming down the steps of an airliner to a welcoming throng. A cliché before dying. Gord evidently has a following now, and several of his screaming fans are sequestered behind a cordon of police. Some are holding signs—”We love Gord!” and “Zebras in America Rulz!” and so forth. Credit where it’s due: one groupie has a sign that says, “When is this movie going to end!?” I admit it—I laughed. (And so the humor tally is easy to mark up: one chuckle and one laugh in the entire movie. One as a result of a cameo and the other a result of self-effacing, you-can’t-make-fun-of-me-because-I’m-making-fun-of-myself defensive humor, often the last resort of unfunny comics.)

It’s a tearful reunion once again. In one final bit, Andy runs into the (thankfully off-screen) spinning props on the plane. Blood splatters over the crowd. Then Andy’s voice comes in from off-camera, “I’m alright! I’m OK!” The crowd laughs. I don’t.

Eminem’s “Slim Shady” (perhaps the only song that deserves to be in this movie) starts playing and the credits roll. Free! I’m free! I made it! I did it! I can run in the sun and spin and twirl! In the lobby I actually turned my first triple cartwheel since my competitive cheerleading days. People were staring but I didn’t care. Hear me roar!

*****************************

Afterthoughts:

Shiva H. Vishnu!!!

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been speechless in the last 5 years. Overlooking the snow-covered Rockies from Independence Pass is one. Reading the last 30 pages of Hannibal is another. Witnessing the scene of the Texas A&M Bonfire collapse the morning after is certainly a third. This was, without a doubt, the longest hour and a half I’ve ever suffered through at the movies. I didn’t know time could move this slowly.

Through (primarily) goony older step-bothers and (secondarily) clueless past romances, I have sat through a welter of simply awful “guy flicks.” (Hey you young Turks! Not to sound randy or anything, but nothing cools the desire for post-movie frolics than taking your little filly to see things like See Spot Run or Joe Dirt.) But none—none—compared to this outside of Jon Waters or Pablo Pasolini.

I ask again: whom, exactly, is this movie targeted at? The ‘R’ rating dictates that in every group, someone must be a legal guardian over the age of 18. Gee, Mr. Peabody, you don’t think they’re expecting to make money on kids 17 and under, are they? Naw. They genuinely expected to turn a profit only on adults coming to see this film, because, after all, it’s ‘for mature audiences only.’ They care about us.

And I’m Nicole Kidman.

Bottom line: did it make money? Some, I think. It cost $15 million to make and grossed (heh) $14.2 by the end of its screen run. Now comes the home video market. So, in the end, it will come out slightly in the black. Disappointing, sure, but at least it wasn’t a big moneymaker.

Editor Ken: Not necessarily. The box office totals are generally – and speaking roughly – split 50/50 between the studio providing the film and the theaters showing it. So chances are that the theatrical run returned seven to eight million to whatever bastards ‘Green’-lit this. {Ha ha. See how funny I am?} It’s possible that the TV cable and broadcast rights, along with video & DVD sales, provided an extremely modest profit – comedies always are heavily bought by video stores, because they are the compromise rental selection when two or more people are looking for a film – but not enough of one to justify the amount of money the studio invested.

This gets back to how all those awful SNL movies, and those starring ex-SNLers like David Spade in Joe Dirt, keep getting produced. The answer is that they can almost always be counted on to draw thirty or thirty-five million bucks at the box office. {Meaning that Freddy Got Fingered ably failed the Night at the Roxbury test. Roxbury pulled in $30 million. Even Corky Romano pulled in well over $20 million} Produced for generally around fifteen million dollars, this means that the production costs are generally covered by the theatrical run, with the ancillary money being all gravy. Then you occasionally get a comparative breakout movie, like Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, which pulled in something on the order of sixty-five million dollars in theaters. This isn’t Independence Day money, but it’s a solid double-bagger.

I apologize to Eva for this extended intrusion. Back to her…

About the only line of defense for this movie I’ve heard seems to revolve around its daring. A.O. Scott gave it a positive review in the New York Times, where he stated that parts of the film were ”rigorous and chaotic, idiotic and brilliant,” and might end up in the Museum of Modern Art. Jay Carr of the Boston Globe, Chris Hewitt of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press and John Zebrowski of the Seattle Times joined him in positive reviews. These men are fools, simple as that, although given what passes for modern art these days, I can’t say I disagree with Scott on that postulation.

But, maybe I’m just being a wet blanket. I don’t think so, although I do confess to being the kind of person to be especially put out by this kind of “humor.” The test is whether or not it’s clever in addition to being gross. I’ve seen both walk hand-in-hand and I laughed right along with everybody else. But this movie just hung all the gross things it could on a plot line of by-the-numbers clichés. In that respect, it wasn’t daring at all, just desperate. Therefore, I don’t subscribe to Scott’s defense.

I’m tedious, so I’ll wrap this up with but one more preachy point. We women commonly trot out the Three Stooges as Exhibit A in attempting to explain why men’s senses of humor are different than ours. Fair enough. We are different, and not just in the plumbing, despite what the Professionally Indignant would have us believe. I feel we compliment one another. Anyway, I’ve seen the Three Stooges. It’s not bad, even clever sometimes, it’s just not for me. More importantly, Freddy Got Fingered and its abhorrent ilk is not the Three Stooges or the Marx Brothers or Candy and Martin. They’re not even Ren and Stimpy. They are a collection of talentless oafs doing sideshow spectacles. The kid who made fart noises with his armpit in 7th grade was funnier. (And presumably he’s grow up and gotten a real job, unlike Tom Green.) Green’s ilk used to be shunted aside like the dross they were. Now, they’re the headline grabbers. Capitalism demands efficiency. The entertainment industry is certainly efficient at marketing this stuff, but efficiency doesn’t count for much in generating genuinely original ideas.

Tragically, there seems to be a growing group of people that simply don’t care. Even worse, particularly for those in the Gen X/Y category, everything seems to be converging upon rock bottom, the lowest common denominator. Dysfunction, misogyny, self-loathing, violence, and all of it presented in the most dreary, unoriginal, and languid manner possible.

Has it always been like this? I’ve only been on this earth 19 years as of this writing, and I’m closing what’s supposed to be a humorous essay sounding like a kvetching Boca Raton matron.

Only I’m not a killjoy and these aren’t whippersnappers to me.

“Winston meditated resentfully on the physical texture of life. Had it always been like this? Always a sort of protest, a feeling that you had been cheated of something that you had a right to.

-George Orwell, 1984.

So much better is out there. What’s the matter with my peer-group? They can’t enjoy this, can they?