Let me just state up front that I have seen many bad movies. I’ve seen Ed Wood films without Joel and the 'bots from MST3K making it easier. I treated myself to such fare as Track of the Moonbeast. I saw Ishtar at the THEATER for God’s sake. I felt prepared to watch Freddy Got Fingered, which was written and directed by its star Tom Green. So, keeping in mind that film is art, and all art is subjective, here’s my review:
This has got to be the worst batch of yellowed pus ever squeezed from a diseased monkey’s scrotum and thrown onto film. After watching this movie, I went to the nearest playground, hung upside down from the monkey bars and sniffed Liquid Paper in hopes of blotting out all trace of this film from my mind. Of all the bullet reviews this has to be the worst movie I’ve seen. That’s including Gigli, which I watched but didn’t post cuz I lost my notes, and the crapfest about the midget vampires.
What makes this movie so bad? I’m guessing Tom Green, who wrote, directed, and starred in the movie. His idea of humor seems to be either screaming stupid lines or repeating stupid lines over and over again. If that doesn’t work, repeatedly scream the stupid lines. And the lead character of Gordy is such an obnoxious asshole whose behavior seems to have no motivation whatsoever, it made me think that if this guy was around in the real world, he’d have been institutionalized long ago. This is one of my major beefs with the movie. There was to reason for his character to do much of what he did. It was random stupidity for the sake of random stupidity, but not in the funny randomly stupid way of Airplane!, if that makes sense. But even in Airplane! you understood why the characters did what they did.
So the movie starts with shots of cartoon characters drawn on paper. We can see Green’s hand holding the paper and pointing at the cartoon, while he explains what’s going on in each picture… which soon becomes obnoxious yelling about what’s happening in each picture. I sigh and help myself to some peanut butter and crackers. If I’m gonna watch this, I might as well eat putter butter. At least I like peanut butter.
We meet Gordy’s (Green) family, Mom (Julie Haggarty) and Dad (Rip Torn) and younger brother Freddy (the kid that played Finch in American Pie). Gordy is 28 and living out of his parents’ basement (finally) and off to LA to work in a cheese sandwich factory while trying to become a famous cartoonist, like Charles Schultz. His father has bought him a LeBaron convertible for the drive from Portland, OR to LA. The movie gets bad quickly from there.
As Gordy drives, he sees a horse at a farm on the side of the road. For some reason, we need a close up shot of the horse’s giant floppy manlies (which get bigger as we watch, thanks Mr. Director, but I’m not into beastiality, m’kay?) Gordy of course slams on his breaks cuz he wants to play farmer too. And – as I’m sure ANYONE would do – he leaps the fence and immediately grabs the horsecock screaming, “I’m a farmer! I’m a farmer! Look at me! I’m a farmer!”
Yeah. Cuz that would be the first thing I’m sure people do when they see an animal and want to pretend they’re farmers – grab a growing horse cock. And it’s not just the stupidity of the scene that makes me not like it, it’s the extreme close-ups of Tom Green fondling the horse. This scene doesn’t even have anything to do with anything since the scene cuts immediately to his parents saying how proud they are of their son, then Gordy arriving in LA. I guess Tom Green has just always wanted to stroke off a horse since he saw that show in Tijuana.
At his job in the cheese sandwich factory, for no reason, he jumps onto the conveyor belt, uses a sausage as a phallus and screams, “I’m a sexy boy! DING DONG! DING DONG! DING DONG!” So… 5 minutes into the movie, and already 3 scenes of pointless obnoxious yelling substituting for humor and two of the scenes (the horse cock and this one) are pointless. At this point I decide if I ever meet Tom Green, I’m going to take a page from Eric Cartman’s book and “kick him square in the nuts.” At least then for once in his life, he’ll have a reason for over-the-top yelling. This pointless scene ends and we cut…
…to Gordy tracking down Dave Davidson (Anthony Michael Hall) to show him his cartoon ideas. Davidson agrees to look at his drawings just to shut him up. He says the most apt line of the film: “It’s fucking stupid, ok? What you need here is elevation. There actually has to be something that happens that’s actually funny. What the fuck is happening here?!” That line pretty much sums up the film. The scene with the horse could have summed up the film if Gordy had been sucking the horse instead of giving it a handjob.
So Davidson gives him advice, saying the drawings are good, but the characters suck and he needs to get inside the animals. So naturally, doing what any of us would do, when he sees a dead deer on the road, Gordy gets out of his car and skins it with a pocketknife (of course showing us the guts oozing out – cuz guts and gore is funny!) He then puts the skin on and rolls around in it, “getting inside the animal,” until he’s hit by a semi. Gordy’s fine though, gets up and laughs it off and for some reason, drives home to Portland.
A neighbor kid named Andy runs up to the car, thankful Gordy’s back, and setting up what turns out to be a running, um, “joke,” he trips and whacks his head on the car door and immediately starts screaming, blood covering his face. Ah yes, screaming bloody children, always comedy gold.
Dad isn’t happy about his son returning to live in the basement and isn’t shy about showing it. That night, Gord is skateboarding on a ramp he’s built at the house while his friend Darren complains about it being too dark to skate and he’s not wearing the right kind of shoes for skateboarding. Gord talks him into it anyway and the first try, Darren falls and breaks his leg. More screaming ensues and a close up of the guy’s compound fracture (cuz yeah, close ups of bloody bones sticking through skin and pants leg is almost a sure-fire comedy gold hit as screaming bleeding children). Dad comes out to see what the yelling is and we’re treated to another close up of the wound. Dad tells Gordy to get an ambulance, so of course that’s followed with Gordy – again, doing what any of us would do – licking the bloody bones.
At the hospital, Gord meets a hot nurse named Betty, who’s paralyzed from the waist down and in a wheelchair. He lies and tells her he’s a stockbroker. So Gord talks to Darren about getting Betty’s phone number. Of course, there’s a pregnant woman sharing a room with Darren and when she goes into labor, Gordy – as any of us would do – pretends to be a doctor and delivers the baby himself. Why the pregnant woman wouldn’t just lean on the “call nurse” button is anyone’s guess. And as always, it just wouldn’t be funny without the screaming. Lots and lots of screaming. The louder the funnier, right?
And because watching Gord jack off a horse or run around in a bloody deer skin isn’t bad enough, we now get to see him cut the umbilical cord.
With.
His.
Fucking.
TEETH.
Then, when the mother asks why the baby isn’t crying, Gord says it’s cuz the baby’s sleeping and will wake the baby. He does this by swinging the baby around by the umbilical cord. More screaming, blood flying around the room, and all this is funny because swinging babies around wildly is ALWAYS funny, right?
So Gordy goes on his date with Betty, who is designing a rocket wheelchair. It quickly turns sexual and Betty wants him to hit her shins with a bamboo shin. Gordy quickly obliges. By Tom Green’s sense of humor, this must be freakin’ hilarious because there’s lots of yelling and more abusive violence. Betty is turned on by this and convinces Gord to let her give him a blowjob. Cuz yeah, men need to be convinced to allow a women to suck us off. Obviously, Tom Green has nev er had a BJ in real life, or the scene wouldn’t have been written that way. Ladies, here’s a tip: Men LOVE blowjobs, ok? It involves most men’s two favorite activities - having sex and not moving. Most men don’t care if a woman looks like Gene Hackman with 4 teeth and hunchback, if she offers him a hummer, he’ll accept.
This gets even dumber, as after Gord lies to his dad about having gotten a job, he complains to Betty that she wants to suck him off too often and they don’t even go out. So he’s got a girlfriend who doesn’t want to go out, just give him head whenever he wants and he’s complaining? That may be the dumbest part of the film. How can a guy get too many blowjobs? That’s like having too much blue in the sky, it just can’t fucking be done, ok?
Anyway, he convinces Betty to go out with him and, by coincidence :rolleyes:, they go to the same restaurant where Gord’s parents are eating, as well as Andy (the kid who ran into the car) and his dad are celebrating Andy’s birthday. Dad finds out Gord lied about having a job and spills the beans to Betty that Gord is unemployed and living in his basement. A fight breaks out, Dad throws a wine bottle which cracks over little Andy’s head (once again mining the comedy gold of screaming injured children), and it ends with Gord running around like a fucking moron repeating “It’s a fancy restaurant! It’s a fancy restaurant!” Because, as we all know, if it’s not funny the first time, just keep repeating it and it will eventually get funny. And for God’s sake, JUST KEEP SCREAMING! If it’s not funny, JUST KEEP SCREAMING AND REPEATING IT! JUST KEEP SCREAMING AND REPEATING IT! JUST KEEP SCREAMING AND REPEATING IT! SCREAM AND REPEAT! SCREAM AND REPEAT!
Still mad at Gord the next day, Dad destroys the skateboarding ramp, so they go to family therapy. Dad calls Gord an embarrassment, so Gordy lies and says Dad touches Freddy in the pants. He says Dad fingers Freddy (aha! So that’s where the title comes from – the well-known comic ray of sunshine that is child molestation humor). More screaming of course, and they take Freddy away, ignoring the fact that Freddy’s a 25-year-old man who says his father never touched him.
After this, Gord finally thinks he should get a job and grow up instead of acting like a baby. He throws away his drawings and tells Betty he’ll never be an animator and she’ll never get her rocket wheelchair to work. Freddy’s in an institution for molested children. Mom left because she believes the lies about fingering Freddy. And poor little Andy gets hit in the face with a baseball, knocking out his teeth and making blood pour from his mouth for no reason other than I guess there wasn’t enough screaming and children in pain for the past 5 minutes.
Gord catches a news story about Betty getting the wheelchair rocket to work, which inspires him to go back to LA and sell his cartoons. Dad follows him and Gord rushes into Davidson’s office to show him his new concept, which is based on his own family. Davidson at first is gonna turn Gordy down, saying it’s too over the top, until Dad bursts in and more yelling and screaming ensues. Davidson is sold and cuts Gord a check for $1 million.
Gord cashes his check and rents a helicopter to meet Betty on the roof of her apartment building. He gives her a bag of jewels, but she doesn’t care about that, she just wants to suck his cock. Elated by this news (finally! He understands cocksucking is a GOOD thing!), he goes to see his dad. He sneaks in at night and shoots his dad in the neck with a dart. While dad is sleeping, he does some work on the house, which costs him the last of his million – he takes his dad’s bedroom and goes to Pakistan with it. That’s right. Pakistan. Cuz we needed more yelling.
Dad is gonna kill Gord for what he did to the house and everything. The chase ends with Gord finding an elephant and jacking it off until the elephant shoots his load all over Dad (this has to be Rip Torn’s lowest point, I’m open to any suggestions to the contrary). And, like all of us would do, father and son make amends after being drenched in elephant jizz. I guess this means the horse bit from earlier was to set up this little touch of comedic genius. Well done, Tom. Well done. Cuz the bigger the animal you jack off, the funnier it is. Please, show us more of you stroking animal penises, you sick fuck, you.
Instead of ending this crap now, it drags on with father and son being kidnapped and held hostage on the Pakistan-India border. Jump ahead 18 months, and the two are released. What does this have to do with anything? Nothing. That’s the movie. Mom still leaves Dad, Freddy’s still in a home, but Dad and Gordy are all ok now, and that’s all that matters.
:rolleyes:
So I hated this movie. I hated it. Hated hated hated hated HATED it.
I understand comedies need charaacters that aren’t your average guys sometimes, but this? This character had no reason or motivation for anything he did. The character of Gordy wasn’t a character at all, he was a vehicle for one tasteless or stupid “joke” after another, an excuse for Tom Green to act like the world’s biggest obnoxious asshole. The funniest thing about this movie was the quote “Brilliant!” on the cover of the DVD rental box, that had to have been taken out of context from the full review.
Every scene that I think was supposed to be funny involved yelling and screaming. He substitues volume for wit. Violence, which can be funny (just check out any Warner Brothers cartoon) was overdone and too realistic for humor’s sake. I never saw anyone laugh at the beach storming scene of Saving Private Ryan, because it was too realistic. The Black Knight scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail was funny, because although it showed blood, it was way over the top, not realistic at all, and the Black Knight shows no pain. Screaming bloody children is painful, not funny. Bones bleeding and sticking through someone’s leg while he screams and writhes in agony is again painful, not funny.
At night, I can still hear the screams.