# Revenge of the Bullet Review: Freddy Got Fingered

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [June 24, 2004, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089 "2004-06-24T22:01:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 18\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![START](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@START](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/START)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/41 "2004-06-26T07:40:07Z")

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I have actually watched that movie 5 or 6 times (1 time in the theatre) and I liked it is there something wrong with me?  
and yes it was gross and disgusting, vulgar but I couldn’t say honestly that I hated it all that much…maybe because I knew what to expect from Tom Green.

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**Author:** ![Crunchy\_Frog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ebca7d/32.png) [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/42 "2004-06-26T16:25:48Z")

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> [@Miller](#):
>
> It really says something about this movie that I can’t tell if that’s a typo or not.

Yes, it was a typo. I meant to type bamboo shoot.

And **START** , I doubt there’s anything wrong with you for liking the movie. A lot more people loved the _Blair Witch Project_, another film that I think was crap, than liked _Freggy Got Fingered_. These reviews are the opinions of a tech support guy going to school for visual communication who does this cuz he likes to watch movies – _any_ movies. I don’t know anything more about film than any other asshole on the street. If you liked it, you liked it. I didn’t.

Maybe **Cervaise** and **pulykamell** are right, and this is Tom Green’s performance art style humor applied to the big screen. Only Green himself knows the truth of what he was trying to accomplish. Andy Kaufman was famous for pissing off his audiences with his bits about being a wrestler and in character as Tony Clifton. Maybe Green has the same mind set. For the record, from the bits of Kaufman I’ve seen (not as Latka on _Taxi_) I wouldn’t have liked Andy’s act either and many consider him a genius.

Kaufman has said that he worked to create real reactions. He wanted people to laugh from the gut, get sad from the gut, or get angry from the gut. Maybe Green’s the same way. But to me, that doesn’t elevate this film above crap-status. I don’t care what one’s intentions were; a bad film is a bad film and I watch these movies on the basis of the film itself. I don’t care how good the book was that a film may be based on or what deep meaning the film may try to put forth. If I think the film as a film sucks, then that’s what I’ll write. But that’s also just my opinion and not everyone will, or even should, agree with my opinions.

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**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/43 "2004-06-26T17:52:16Z")

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> [@Crunchy Frog](#):
>
> …Only Green himself knows the truth of what he was trying to accomplish.\<snip\> Maybe Green has the same mind set…

I think you may be giving Green more credit than he deserves. I think Kaufman was a little more calculating in his bits. Green seems to do stuff as it pops into his twisted mind: “Mmmm, think I’ll jerk off a horse.” versus Kaufman’s “Think I’ll convince people I’m now a wrestler and I’ll get real wrestlers to play along and it’ll just go on and on until people think I’ve lost my mind.”

There’s no telling what Kaufman would have gotten into had he not died. He would have loved the internet.

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**Author:** ![Crunchy\_Frog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ebca7d/32.png) [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/44 "2004-06-26T18:34:40Z")

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> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#):
>
> I think you may be giving Green more credit than he deserves. I think Kaufman was a little more calculating in his bits. Green seems to do stuff as it pops into his twisted mind: “Mmmm, think I’ll jerk off a horse.” versus Kaufman’s “Think I’ll convince people I’m now a wrestler and I’ll get real wrestlers to play along and it’ll just go on and on until people think I’ve lost my mind.”

I may have given Green too much credit, but I couldn’t think of any other example than Andy Kauffman as a performer who intentionally pissed off the audience by playing jokes on them without letting them in on it. The main difference is I can appreciate where Kauffman was coming from, even if I didn’t find it entertaining, whereas I can’t appreciate Green’s crude and tasteless behavior. As you said, Kaufman planned what he did. The whole bit about being a bad-guy wrestler who wrestles women and gets into a fued with Jerry Lawler and the extensive make-up job to perform as Tony Clifton while denying he was Clifton was well-thought out and planned. Green’s whole schtick seems to be as shockingly random and tasteless as possible, which I just can’t appreciate as “art”. Anyone can be tasteless.

> [@](#):
>
> There’s no telling what Kaufman would have gotten into had he not died. He would have loved the internet.

As I said before, I didn’t see much of Kaufman’s work outside of Taxi reruns, but something tells me he’d have had a blast online.

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**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/45 "2004-06-26T20:30:22Z")

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> [@Crunchy Frog](#):
>
> As I said before, I didn’t see much of Kaufman’s work outside of Taxi reruns, but something tells me he’d have had a blast online.

Try to track down the details of his wrestling phase. I don’t think any comedian these days would attempt the same thing. Too much work.

Tom Green’s 15 minutes are over.

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**Author:** ![Crunchy\_Frog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ebca7d/32.png) [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/46 "2004-06-27T17:11:23Z")

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> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#):
>
> Try to track down the details of his wrestling phase. I don’t think any comedian these days would attempt the same thing. Too much work.

I saw some of that on a special/documentary that was run on Comedy Central, and I’ve seen the biopic _Man on the Moon_. Other than that, I know very little about his work.

> [@](#):
>
> Tom Green’s 15 minutes are over.

We can only hope.

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**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/47 "2004-06-27T18:19:02Z")

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For what it’s worth, I feel I have a pretty good sense of humor. I can laugh at the offensive. Eminem cracks me up whenever I hear a song or (even better) see a video – despite ultimately disliking rap in all its forms, and being a suburban-raised white chick who feels strongly about gender equality.

I find Tom Green an irritating, pointless attention whore.

Tom Green isn’t making a statement. He is just out for a reaction – positive, negative, whatever. He’s like a two year old screaming “LOOK AT ME!” Maybe his mommy cares, but I don’t. I tuned into his show a few times, and most of his humor seemed to be based on bothering and enraging passerby who are minding their own business, or causing business owners or people doing their job undue grief. Bleh.

This is from someone who can admit enjoying most of Jackass: The Movie (with a few scenes being too disgusting to enjoy).

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**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/48 "2004-06-27T18:28:22Z")

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> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> One day you all will realize what an over-the-top piece of anarchic comedic genius this movie is.
> 
> … and yes, I am being serious.
> 
> At least I have the New York Times critic and **jackelope** in my corner. From what I can tell, we are the only three people on this earth who found this movie funny.

I laughed my silly little head off at this film, precisely because it’s so over the line that it’s impossible to take it seriously. It’s like 90 minutes of a 12 year old thinking, “What’s the grossest thing you can think of?”. I saw a review once that compared it to the ultimate deconstruction of Adam Sandler idiot man-child voyage of self-discovery films, which made a lot of sense.

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**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/49 "2004-06-27T19:19:20Z")

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> [@fluiddruid](#):
>
> I tuned into his show a few times, and most of his humor seemed to be based on bothering and enraging passerby who are minding their own business, or causing business owners or people doing their job undue grief. Bleh.

And he would typically act completely surprised that they were pissed off by what he was doing.

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**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/50 "2004-06-27T19:40:22Z")

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I caught a part of his show once-it was him dressed as an old man, in one of those motorized carts, just zooming through a grocery store, knocking things over and making a mess.

THAT sealed my hatred of all things Tom Green. (If I were the business owner, I’d press charges of vandalism, unless he agreed to clean it up!)

As for his fifteen minutes-we haven’t heard from him for a while, it seems. One can only hope it continues.

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**Author:** ![Trigonal\_Planar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/0ea827/32.png) [@Trigonal\_Planar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trigonal_Planar)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/51 "2004-06-27T21:50:40Z")

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I’m not sure how many Dopers know the history of Tom Green - especially all you non-Canadian dopers. Well, Green started out with a no-budget community access show on the local public cable channel, in Ottawa. Eventually it was shown on the various other public acccess stations around Ontario. The show was aired at like midnight or something on firday or saturday night, so very few people watched it. That is, except for dorky teenagers such as myself at the time. It had a really cool “underground” feel to it for those who knew about it (very few people did at the time). Anyway, this show **was very funny**. Okay, it still wouldn’t be funny to those who find don’t gross-out/prank-calling-type stuff funny, but it really was quite amusing. There was the infamous “Scuba Fairy” wherein he would arrive at malls fully dressed in scuba gear and attempt to “rescue” money from fountains. And of course, the episode in which he painted the exterior of his house in plaid. At least for me and my group of antisocial friends, this stuff was really quite inspired. I must also admit that we were all sort of Tom Green wannabes. We used to do lots of stupid “publicity stunts” just to get reactions from people (and we taped it!).

Unfortunately, as is often the case, once he started getting popular the quality of the show, errm, declined. His MTV show was terrible. The segments were terrible and nowhere near as creative as his early RogersTV days.

So just to reiterate, his early show really was quite funny and creative and I don’t mind admitting this.

PS. Any dopers here ever see his original show?

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**Author:** ![Crunchy\_Frog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ebca7d/32.png) [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/52 "2004-06-27T22:10:54Z")

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> [@Raygun99](#):
>
> It’s like 90 minutes of a 12 year old thinking, “What’s the grossest thing you can think of?”

Maybe that’s why I didn’t like it. I stopped being 12 almost 20 years ago.

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**Author:** ![legion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/838e76/32.png) [@legion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/legion)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/53 "2004-06-27T22:59:52Z")

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CruchyFrog, dude, ever heard of spoilers? :dubious:

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**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2004, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/54 "2004-06-28T13:55:09Z")

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> [@legion](#):
>
> CruchyFrog, dude, ever heard of spoilers? :dubious:

You might not have been around when Crunchy was doing his Bullet Reviews before. It’s gotten to the point whenever we see the words **Crunchy Frog** and **Bullet Review** in the thread title, we know it’s going to have spoilers.

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**Author:** ![Crunchy\_Frog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ebca7d/32.png) [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2004, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/55 "2004-06-28T14:34:09Z")

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> [@legion](#):
>
> CruchyFrog, dude, ever heard of spoilers? :dubious:

The point of the Bullet Review is that I watch the movie so you don’t have to. So spoilers are actually necessary or else you’d have to watch the movie.

I think I normally post that spoilers are forthcoming in the OP, if not in the thread title, but I forgot to add that this time. My fault. I forgot I hadn’t posted one of these in a while and I should have added that part in there for the people who hadn’t seen these before. And don’t worry, these are about the only threads in which I post unboxed spoilers.

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**Author:** ![Crunchy\_Frog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ebca7d/32.png) [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2004, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/56 "2004-06-28T14:40:35Z")

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Ok, I just checked, and in all the other reviews (links to whcih can be found [in this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=261892) ) I had posted a spoiler warning either in the first couple sentences of the OP or in the title, with the exception of _Ankle Biters_, which I doubt anyone read anyway.

So why I would suddenly stop warning about spoilers here seems to be just a brain fart on my behalf. I’ll try to remember to do it next time.

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**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2004, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/57 "2004-06-28T15:01:46Z")

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Gotta say - the movie’s over-the-top and ridiculous and outlandish to such a degree that I found it funny in an absurdist way. Yeah, a lot of the stunts are gross. Most of them. Okay, all of them. It’s definitely cringeworthy in that respect - but I have a great admiration for the absurd… the non-sequiturs…

The deer-skin gag just killed me.

Now, having sabotaged the value of my opinion for the majority of the SDMB, I slink away into the night. 😉

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**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2004, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revenge-of-the-bullet-review-freddy-got-fingered/252089/58 "2004-06-28T16:02:38Z")

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I’ve actually seen a few minutes of this movie. Those are precious moments of my life I will never get back. Thank you for taking the rest of the bullet, **Crunchy Frog**.

The reason why I’ve seen a few minutes of this movie is because a taped-from-satellite-TV copy, along with a few other movies, was left in my apartment by the previous tenant. I had offered to tape episodes of “Spongebob Squarepants” for a coworker and decided to recycle the one video I was sure I would never wish to watch. But after a week or two of taping “Spongebob”, I was struck with curiosity…kind of like Pandora. I had to see what was on that tape. I’d heard it was bad, but I just had to see for myself!

The few moments I saw involved Tom Green meeting the woman in the wheelchair at the hospital, then going in to see his friend with the broken leg. I was willing to give the movie the benefit of the doubt and assume that there was some reason why a young man with a broken leg had been placed in the maternity ward, although judging from **CF** ’s review I was giving them too much credit. Anyway, one of the women started going into labor, Tom Green started pretending to be an OB, and I started to feel real fear. I turned the video off and never looked at it again.

I’m glad I’d heard of the infamous umbilical cord/swung baby scene before, so I could turn the video off in time. But even without having seen any of the disgusting scenes, I was still disturbed by the movie. First there was the way things happened for no reason at all, which judging from the OP is the way the whole movie goes. There was no reason at all for Green to pretend to be a doctor. It wasn’t like he’d been pretending to be a doctor to impress the woman in the wheelchair and found himself caught in his own lie. It wasn’t like the pregnant woman mistook him for a doctor and asked him to help her. No, he just decided he’d be a doctor and deliver the baby, despite the terrified protestations of the mother-to-be who knew full well he was just some idiot visiting a friend.

And that was what made it really troubling to me. A helpless, vulnerable, and frightened woman, struggling to bring a long-awaited baby into the world, was being denied medical treatment and subjected to the ministrations of a man she knew to be a moronic madman. That’s just not funny. I’d have felt uncomfortable watching such a scene in a _horror_ movie, but being asked to _laugh_ at it? Even without seeing the gross-out scene that followed, I had to conclude that this movie was sick.

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