The filth and the fury

>> Joe Dirt hits new lows

by MATTHEW HAYS

As forgettable, throwaway comedies go, Joe Dirt stakes out some new ground. Yep, it'll make some money in its first week, but I'd place bets the film will fall into oblivion seconds after that.

And again, those rats from Saturday Night Live are responsible. Alumnus David Spade cowrites and stars, while Adam Sandler is listed as an executive producer (Dennis Miller also has a pivotal role). The irony is, SNL itself--though wildly uneven and definitely prone to down periods--is often such a great show, written from such a cynical perspective: down on Hollywood and its empty product, down on sky-high salaries feeding the out-of-control egos of name actors.

But when they graduate, even relatively funny people like Spade and Sandler end up churning out dreck like this, which, unlike many SNL sketches and characters, no one will ever remember. And if the sketches on SNL too often seem dragged out, there really isn't enough funny shtick to fill a trailer in Dirt--and even that's a stretch. Spade plays a bit of white trash (now there's an original target!) who listens to crappy music and cleans toilets for a living. We soon learn he was abandoned by his parents at Grand Canyon at the wee age of nine, and is now trying desperately to find them. That's it. The rest of the film is simply a dreary bunch of vignettes thrown together, none of them very interesting or well done. Even an episode from a rotten season of SNL would offer more laughs than this--and copious commercial breaks, which would have actually helped Joe Dirt by offering relief.

Not very inspiring stuff. But I was hit with a wondrous fantasy while sitting in the theatre at the premiere of Dirt. There was a couple, sitting behind me, who were laughing loudly at many jokes, no matter their level of lameness. Still recovering from an ankle injury, I had a metal crutch with me. On numerous instances, I felt like standing up and using my trusty crutch to bludgeon the two to death. I thought it through, though: would it be worth it to get locked up on murder one charges, just to have taken out a couple of Spade fans?

A very, very tough call indeed. Being a martyr to taking out even a couple of the people who help to fuel the industry that makes crap like Joe Dirt might actually be worth it.

Joe Dirt is now playing