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The Hollywood Bakery has just concocted a new recipe that's bound to tantalize the tastebuds of the tasteless throughout the country. Add one part American Pie to one part There's Something About Mary, bake for 90 minutes and - poof - out pops Say It Isn't So. It's crudely funny and has a story you'll likely forget about halfway home from the theatre.
So's voiceover gives us the important background on its main character as the film opens. Gilly Noble (Chris Klein, Here on Earth) was raised in an orphanage and is currently working in Shelbyville, Indiana's animal control department. Despite his loneliness, Gilly still dreads having dinner with his boss' severely dysfunctional family, which provides one of So's early shock scenes and sets the pace for the rest of the film's seemingly endless parade of sight gags.
Gilly becomes smitten with Jo Wingfield (Heather Graham, Bowfinger), a former Shelbyville resident and hairdresser who has recently moved back to town. She's awful at her job, a point driven home in a scene that shows everything Tarantino left out of Reservoir Dogs. The two fall in love, Gilly pops the question, and, shortly after they consummate their relationship, Gilly finds out his birth parents are - surprise - Valdine and Walter Wingfield (Sally Field and Richard Jenkins). That makes him Jo's brother, if you happen to be a little slow on the uptake.
Long story short, Jo moves back to Oregon (to a town called Beaver) and gets engaged to a millionaire you know will turn out to be a really bad dude. Gilly finds out he isn't really Jo's sibling, and the remaining 60 minutes involves him trekking across the country to win back his true love. Along the way, he befriends a pilot who looks like Jimi Hendrix but swears he's part American Indian (Orlando Jones, Double Take) and falls prey to a series of jokes involving pubic hair, amputees, parapalegics and bovine proctology. We're not talking subtle humor, people. Here's the bottom line - if you liked Pie and Mary, you'll like this. If you didn't, stay home and shut up.
With a film like this, you can't expect too much from the actors. It's hard to tell if Graham is an airhead or just playing one on the screen. Klein comes off a little better, more than making up for the miserable Earth. Jones logs his best performance yet and steals every scene he's in. Ditto for Jenkins, but Field gives one of those is-it-too-late-to-take-back-her-Oscar? performances. Lin Shaye, a frequent bit player in the Farrelly films, is surprisingly subdued here. There's cameo at the end that's kind of shocking and quite funny.
The gross-out jokes will definitely remind you of Pie and Mary, but the feeble story is reminiscent of Mary, too. Think about sad-sack Ben Stiller (Klein) wooing the beautiful Cameron Diaz (Graham), meeting her wacky father played by David Keith (Jenkins) and then horribly disfiguring his scrotum (ear). Klein was in Pie and is starring in this summer's sequel, and Jenkins was just in the Farrelly's Me, Myself & Irene. The similarities to Pie and Mary extend behind the camera, too. Director James B. Rogers, making his debut here, served as the first assistant director on all four Farrelly brothers' films and Pie (he's also directing Pie's sequel). And the Farrellys are producers here, as well. It's all one, big, sick family.
1:30 - R for strong sexual content (nudity), crude humor and language
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