Joe Dirt

I did laugh once. Christopher Walken plays an ex mob guy in Witness Relocation, whose cover is blown by the hapless Mr Dirt about halfway through the film. At the end of the movie, Dirt runs into him again in his tiny home town (hey, it could happen), where the mobster has relocated under the new identity of "Gert Frobe".

If you know your Bond films, you'll recognize Gert Frobe's name. He's the actor who played Goldfinger.

Well, that was it. The comic high water mark.

It's a movie aimed at the male 9-15 market, so the target audience wouldn't understand the Frobe joke, but would feel right at home with the constant shit and fart jokes. If you are a male 9-15, and you enjoy the playground badinage where one guy says "you homo" and the other guy responds by making a fart noise with his hands cupped under his arm, then this is your movie.

Junior's comments in yellow:

"Dirt" wasn't that bad. Executive produced by Adam Sandler's Happy Madison production company, it carries the same look, feel, and storytelling of other productions such as "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo", "The Animal". It seems Happy Madison is shaping up to be a movie factory for sweet, not-too-offensive comedies about loveable losers who get the girl in the end staring former SNL players.

Written by Daivid Spade and long time SNL writer Fred Wolf. "Joe Dirt" is about guy who tells the story of his life on a popular shock jock's radio show and becomes a national hero. The plot is barely there, but it's not really important. The movie is actually a series of sketches poking fun of white trash and rednecks. The hook is that they poke fun of every conceivable white trash or redneck stereotype since 1974 by sticking them all into one guy...mullet, Hemi, AC/DC shirts, Skoal, Auto Trader, starting and wimping out of fights with lame excuses, acid washed jeans, etc, and then sending him out into the world.

There are a few good laughs here and there, but unless you've lived with or near white trash, 90% of jokes just wont be funny. I think that's why it was panned so by critics. However, in my time I've lived in Florida, Kentucky, and Texas...so needless to say, some of the stereotyes reminded me of people I went to school with and made fun of often and I had fun watching it.

DVD info from Amazon.

Widescreen anamorphic, 1.85:1
three deleted scenes, outtake reel

The soundtrack rocks solid and keeps on keeping on. It's like the greatest hits of any Classic Rock radio station during the month of "Rocktober". By the way, Eddie Money must have a great sense of humor.

As always with Sandler projects, the big celeb stars with pint sized roles steal the show. Dennis Miller as the radio jock is the glue that holds the story together with series of reality breaks that keeps us from 90 minutes of non-stop Skynyrd jokes. And of course...Christopher Walken is a comic genius!

The Critics Vote

General consensus: one and a half stars. Ebert 1.5/4, Apollo 41/100.
Rotten Tomatoes summary. 7% positive reviews overall, and a flawless 0% from the top critics.

The People Vote ...

With their votes ... IMDB summary: IMDb voters score it 5.4, Apollo voters a similar 50/100

With their dollars ... it wasn't a smash, hit, but it took in $27 million domestic on a $13 million budget.

IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a C-. Only for the pre-pubescent male market, and even they may find it sub-par.