Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with an early look at the Johnny Knoxville vehicle called THE RINGER, which, if I'm not mistaken, was shot here in Austin... This sounds like a disaster. The premise of the film is a guy pretending to be handicapped to get into the special olympics, yet they're trying to be tasteful about it? Get outta town! If you're going to do a movie like this, go all the way. Offend people. Actually, to me it's more offensive if you go for this sort of premise and apply any kind of political correctness to it. Not to mention South Park beat them to the punch (although it must be said that this concept was moving way before the episode aired) and Family Guy has also touched upon handicapped olympics... who could forget the Stephen Hawking-like dude and his voicebox? "I rule. I rule. Ha-ha-ha-ha." Anyway, check out what John Cocktoasten has to say about the film!
Quint,
Never had a review posted by you guys, but maybe this one'll be worthy. Last night I went to a test screening of THE RINGER, starring Johnny Knoxville, in beautiful Agoura Hills, CA The filmmakers are clearly worried about offending people: before the screening they announced that the movie had the approval of the Special Olympics. They should stop worrying about it being offensive and start worrying about it being funny.
When you hear that Johnny Knoxville is starring in a movie about a guy pretending to be handicapped in order to rig the Special Olympics, you expect a balls-out-fall-on-the-floor-push-the-envelope-comedy along the lines of Jackass: the Movie, South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, or Kingpin. But noooooooooo. This movie was so tame it was embarrassing. What happened to Johnny Knoxville's balls?
Example: after enduring an incredibly boring first twenty minutes, when Knoxville's finally going to pretend to be retarded, there's a bunch of quick shots of him trying out various crazily-dressed retard personas ("I can count to potato!" is one funny line). But after that, Knoxville finally settles on the most inoffensive and bland imitation of a mentally handicapped guy imaginable (his name is Jeffy). It's a major cop-out, and it's only the beginning.
Here's the basic story: Knoxville needs to pay for an operation to restore an old guy's fingers, because he's kind of responsible. He calls his uncle (played by Brian Cox--a painfully unfunny role for an actor I usually like) for money. But uncle already owes some mob types money for gambling. Then on TV uncle sees promo for Jimmy, the Special Olympics super-athlete who's never lost. The mob heavy loves Jimmy, so uncle comes up with idea to rig Special Olympics by having Knoxville pretend to be retarded. Knoxville has to do this before the old guy's severed fingers, which are on ice, thaw in two weeks. It's as clunky as it sounds.
Katherine Heigl plays the love interest, a Special Olympics volunteer. She's beautiful, sweet, and virginal. There is a shower scene in the movie, but it features all the mentally handicapped guys wearing towels and dancing. Almost all the laughs in the movie come from these guys, who figure out Knoxville's faking, but want to help him beat Jimmy. The humor is a lot like Sean Penn's buddies in I Am Sam: retarded guy says something stupid, another retarded guy says something unexpectedly crude, another retarded guy says something stupid. Half of the guys were actually mentally disabled, and half were obviously actors. This felt wrong somehow.
The sad truth is, Knoxville just didn't have much to do in the movie. There are no plot twists, it just plods along. His character had to get pushed and prodded to do anything. There's one moment where he uses his power as mentally handicapped Jeffy to get even with Heigl's slick boyfriend which was pretty funny, but other than that there was nothing. A lot of time was spent on the romance, which did nothing for me. Knoxville's big "Don't call them tards!" scene fell flat. The ending was painfully bad.
A while ago South Park did an episode where Cartman pretended to be handicapped so he could beat Jimmy at the Special Olympics, and it was hilarious. It had 25 times the bite and laughs this movie has. Maybe there's a price for getting the Special Olympics' approval, because this movie was strictly by-the-book and forgettable. Another great concept bungled completely.
Sign me,
John Cocktoasten
