THE UNDERGROUND COMEDY MOVIE
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Phaedra Cinema Director: Vince Offer Writer: Vince Offer Cast: Geena Lee Nolin, Slash, Michael Clark Duncan, Joey Buttafuoco, Lightfield Lewis, Karen Black, Rebecca Chaney, Jeery Mongo Brownlee, Michael Parisi, Gloria Sperling, Bobby Lee
Humankind's foibles are so numerous that we don't wonder that satirical theater, printed words and later movies became a popular genre ever since Aristophanes spoofed the pretensions of Socrates 2500 years ago. Satire is my genre: but it's gotta be good. There's a difference, for example, between John Cleese's stellar role as Fawlty Towers on TV some two decades ago and John Cleese's embarrassing performance as a high-kicking transvestite in the abysmal recent comedy, "The Out-of-Towners." There's also a difference between the limp parody of high-school kids in "Jawbreakers" and the incisive send-up of American morality and ethics in the wonderful new teen-based film, "Election."
There's also the kind of movie that's so bad that it's good. Such is not "The Underground Comedy Movie," which is so bad that it's bad. Really atrocious. Its writer-director, young Vince Offer, supposedly took ten years to make this alleged comedy, with which he hopes to draw chuckles and guffaws by pure outrageousness. Remember how some people walked out of last year's "There's Something About Mary" because of a supposedly vulgar riff on the title character's hair mousse? "The Underground Comedy Movie" not only makes that movie look like "The Wizard of Oz," but director Offer actually sued the team that gave Cameron Diaz a new look for allegedly stealing fourteen--count 'em--fourteen ideas from his new film.
Though Offer insists that his film is "guaranteed to offend," presumably to affront those who remain in their seats throughout the 87 minutes, "The Underground Comedy Movie" is so unfinished, so lacking in varnish, that it can scarcely wound anyone--unless Offer can find someone around who is horrified to find gallons of milk, substituting for semen, poured over one actor after another. Actually a series of skits with performers popping up now and then, the movie showcases such events as "The Miss American Bag Lady Contest," using actual bag women in the L.A. area (or is it Tijuana?), who parade around in swim suits to be judged by four drunks lying in the gutter casting their votes. In a running skit on the theme "things you will never see," the film opens on two supermodels "taking a dump," and concludes with a hopelessly inept "jury making the right decision"--in which two white guys cast the jury's only "not guilty votes" in the case of a black defendant, claiming that the society is "only trying to keep the brother down."
Gays, blacks, Jews, Italians, comic book characters, virgins, psychologists and even the dead are lampooned, but for real sophistication, you've gotta see "Batman" repeatedly clubbing two hare krishna guys with baseball equipment and a lifeguard who keeps his eyes fixed on some beautiful women on a raft while a guy is repeatedly attacked by a shark. An actor named Bobby Lee plays "Sushi Papa." Doesn't Mr. Offer know that he's playing the role of a Chinese and not a Japanese? Michael Parisi performs in the role of the Godmother in yet another skit mocking one of the great cinema works of all time, but making an offer that the audience can easily resist.
"The Underground Comedy Movie" has humor, so to speak, directed at the 14-17-year-old demos, but since it would be rated NC-17 when it opens in theaters on May 7, its prime audience would presumably not even get to see the movie. For once, the juvenile set can thank the ratings system for keeping them out.
Not Rated. Running Time: 87 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
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