Dirty Work
Starring Norm MacDonald and Artie Lange
Directed by Bob Saget
Reviewed by John Latchem
At one point in this movie there is a staging of an Opera that goes completely wrong. But one member of the crowd stands up and cheers, thinking the performance was planned, and applauding it for their efforts. That's "Dirty Work" in a nutshell. A very different kind of movie. This is not a movie that I can easily review. The critic in me analyzes the structure, plot, acting, characters. . .and tells me this movie is terrible. But the Norm MacDonald fan in me had me rolling on the floor laughing. This movie plays more like an HBO sketch comedy than a movie. It's a one note concept. Mitch and Sam need $50000 in order to bribe a doctor to give their father a heart transplant before other more needy patients. Realizing they are very good at revenge plots, they open a revenge for hire business, eventually running afoul of a rich businessman played by Christopher MacDonald (who after roles in "Happy Gilmore" and "Veronica's Closet" seems typcast in this role), who sends them to destroy a building that Mitch learns is the home of his girlfriend's grandmother, thus leading them to plot against the rich businessman on the night of the grand opening of a new Opera house. First the critic in me. The plot is the standard poor guy vs evil rich guy device, where the main character meets the girl of his dreams along the way. Here's the catch. None of the characters are sympathetic. They're all selfish jerks who don't care who they hurt in their attempts to do whatever they want. The jokes are juvenile, crude, appealing to the worst elements in people. There's jokes about prostitutes, the homeless, beastiality, anal sex. There's even a subplot that's developed, it seems, only to make jokes about infidelity and incest. And I loved watching it. I was a huge fan of Norm MacDonald's sarcastic, to-the-point comedy on Saturday Night Live, and this movie is an hour and a half of it. Norm MacDonald takes a joke, strips it to the core, and tells it like it is with a dry wit. Like the scene were he and his friend are learning the ropes at a new construction job. The foreman goes over the basics, which Mitch and Sam don't understand. How do they get out of it? By admiting they lied on their resumes, and don't know a thing about construction! And surprise, they get fired. The characters are incredibly mean-spirited. There's a father who's loud and obnoxious, a gambling addicted Doctor played by Chevy Chase who tells Sam of his father's condition by saying "If I were a gambling man I'd put a lot of money on death." The businessman Cole who always has his dog Spunky, and does who knows what with it. And then there's Mitch and Sam, who, thinking they can get $50000 by destroying a building, ponder how their actions would ruin the lives of the residents. "Too bad we have to do it," Mitch says. Here's a movie where every joke that is executed as it is set up, where you see every punchline coming, where every spot profanity could be used and then is used. At least the film is honest, and makes no mistake that it is anything more than idiotic. But at least it isn't dull, and it isn't predictable. And that's the way it should be. It's sketch comedy, and if you're a fan of Norm MacDonald, you'll love it. The jokes are crude, the characters are mean to the core, the attitude of the movie is that it just doesn't care. If you don't like Norm MacDonald, or stupid movies, then you probably won't like this one. The jokes are crude, the characters are mean to the core, the attitude of the movie is that it just doesn't care. So before seeing this one, tune your mindset, and prepare for a slew of Norm MacDonald humor, gay animal sex, prison rape jokes, uncaring characters, and one last performance from Chris Farley.
The critic in me says 3 out of 10 (*) But I give it an 8 (***). I just couldn't stop laughing.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews