Dirty
Work (1998)
Note to Self: "Dirty Work"
sucks
Maybe I shouldn't be that hard on it, Lord knows I
laughed at some of the jokes. It's just that while I
may have expected a comedy from Norm MacDonald, from
TV's "SNL," to have "dry humor," I expected less "dry"
and more humor. A few months prior to the release of
the film, an NBC executive fired MacDonald from the
Weekend Update host job at the long- running comedy
variety show for being "not funny." Maybe he saw a rough
cut of this film.
The film has a stupid enough premise, MacDonald and
longtime chubby friend Sam (the real life tub Artie
Lane) have no luck keeping jobs but have lot of luck
seeking retribution on former employers. The solution
is simple: Open a Revenge-for-Hire business. Okay, there's
room for comedy in there. But the duo are really not
so smart at getting revenge either, or not inventive
enough, if ya really think about it. On at least two
occasions, they get revenge by putting dead fish in
someone's home to stink it up. Duh.
The film is rather a lame collection of crude, juvenile
jokes guaranteed to make 11 year old boys laugh but
no one else. Although the film does wait almost until
the climax for a fart joke, it begins almost immediately
with piss jokes, shit jokes, sex jokes (of the most
base kind), breast jokes, and, of course, gay jokes.
In this film, homosexuality isn't a lifestyle choice,
it's a dirty joke. There are so many of them, ranging
from the most putrid of prison sex jokes to the most
sad use of the genre (in an outtake at the end where
Chris Farley tells MacDonald he wants to go "camping"
cause "I'm so lonely" - tragic irony). Homosexuality
is treated as a reason for shame and laughter. It's
appalling. Especially since many of it's stars and writers,
and it's director, seem like probable closet cases themselves.
As for the director, it is none less than Mr. Funny
Videos himself, Bob Saget. The former TV goody-two-shoes
is trying so desperately to revive a career and show
himself as something more than the Olssen Twins daddy
figure that it's sickening to see him sink to the level
of this material. He does, at least, an adequate job
of direction. And while he may one day be another Betty
Thomas, it appears that he will never be a Penelope
Spheeris. (At least he's no Tamara Davis!)
"Dirty Work has a bevy of stars but none of them can
do anything to help here. Chevy Chase (another former
"Weekend Update" anchor) is as dull as ever but not
as funny; Traylor Howard is cute but wasted, (We spend
more time trying to remember the name of her series,
"Two Guys A Girl and A Pizza Place" than we do thinking
about what she does here); Don Rickles simply phones
in his small role and doesn't give us even a funny insult;
Jack Warden doesn't even understand the material and
seems only to revel in his use of the word "whore" than
to comprehend it's wry usage here. (The film is so misogynistic
it considers everyone female a whore here, even Howard's
grandmother), Chris Farley does his usual Chris Farley
thing only as a tertiary character; Adam Sandler has
a cameo as the devil that is useless; Gary Coleman has
two cameos that are useless; Writer and wry comedian
Fred Wolf gets the honor of making the fart jokes; and
Christopher McDonald is again called upon to play the
bad guy and does so with more class than any of the
good guys here. (By the way, is that Jenny McCarthy
as the Bearded Lady?)
"Dirty Work" could have been a lot more funny. It
could have been a hilarious comedy. It could have been
a film. Instead, it's as tired as the prison sex jokes
it uses. At least MacDonald didn't play an anchorman
who loses his job and goes into the revenge for hire
business. At least it isn't "Weekend Update: The Movie."
Notes: John Goodman has a small cameo.
Screenplay by MacDonald, Wolf and Frank Sebastiano.
Music by Richard Gibbs. Pop Songs by Third Eye Blind,
Chumbawumba, AC/DC, Rupert Holmes, KFMDM and others.
The opera Don Giovani, Libarace, Yoko Ono and The
Rolling Stones are referenced in the film.
Filmed in Canada on a budget of about $13 million.
Review written in 1998
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