The Groovie Ghoulie caught the latest insanity from the Farelly Brothers, and like Aguirre before him, he loved the film. Personally I think these guys are the funniest guys in Hollywood right now, much more so than the passe Zuckers or for my taste the Southpark guys. I don't know why, but the Southpark stuff seems to hit me flat, maybe I just haven't seen them in the right atmosphere, but I do know that KINGPIN knocked me flat on my ass. Hell it caused my dad to do that Jonathon Kent wrist grabbing "Oh dear" bit, and he never has coronaries over comedies. So here's the Groovie Ghoulie review...
Saw a test screening tonight of the new Farelly Brothers and I must say, they do not disappoint. It's as good as Dumb and Dumber, and better than Kingpin. We saw the proverbial "rough" version, which ran about two solid hours, but still had some minor sound/color problems. So here it is:
The movie opens by setting up a great running gag, avant garde musician Jonathan Richman and an unidentified drummer playing and singing; acting as a Greek chorus. They pop up in a number of hilarious places, with original music as well as some Richman classics. We move into the first meeting of Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz, which takes place in 1985, at their high school.
Their first meeting is pretty unremarkable, but what happens at their next meeting is unbelievably funny. I busted a gut. For real. I don't want to give away too much, but there is one shot, a closeup of something, that is sure to be cut by the MPAA before the thing is released. Suffice it to say, something sensitive gets caught in something with interlocking metal teeth.
Flash forward to the present...Ben Stiller hires sketchy insurance investigator Matt Dillon through mutual friend Chris Elliott whose performance, sadly, doesn't approach the comic beauty of his "Get a Life" days. Matt Dillon goes to Miami to track down Cameron Diaz, who is the love of Ben Stiller's life. As you probably know, Dillon falls for her, which leads to love triangle and, eventually, love square, with everyone swooning, and justifiably so, for the smokin' hot Diaz.
There's plenty, and I mean plenty, of raunchy humor, including the now- infamous "hair-gel" scene, which I won't ruin for anyone who hasn't heard about it yet. After the payoff of this particular scene, though, the audience laughter was loud and long enough to completely obliterate the next 8 or 10 lines of dialogue.
Where the movie doesn't get bogged down by too much plot, it is truly, tastelessly, uproarious. I laughed harder, and more often, than I did at Kingpin. All the performances were really good, and there's a cameo, as usal, by Harland Williams (a.k.a. Rocketman), who most folks remember as the pee- drinkin' cop from Dumb and Dumber.
There are at least two major segments that I believe will be snipped by the censors, which isn't bad when you consider that the movie makes pretty much nonstop fun of retarded and crippled people. They're brutal, but the audience was laughing pretty hard in spite of themselves.
Anyway, I had a ball...check it out.
