Joe Dirt

Joe Dirt

My review of this movie probably could have been done without me even having to watch Joe Dirt. David Spade collaborating with Adam Sandler who along with Fred Wolf (writer for SNL, Black Sheep, Dirty Work, and, Little Nicky) produced another film consisting of five-minute clips that are weakly woven into a storyline. And sadly, in most cases, with this type of film, if it hasn’t by the trailer already given out most of the fun, no point in wasting resources for film.

The film begins by introducing us to the protagonist Joe Dirt, who works as a custodian at an LA radio station. Fortunately, one of the station’s DJs, Dennis Miller, runs across Joe while looking for someone to entertain his audience. But instead of leaving Joe alone, Dennis pulls him to the studio to humiliate and entertain his listeners for a little while.

To make matters worse, in the very first encounter, Joe Dirt, who preferred the moniker Dirte’ (in his words, it’s pronounced Deer-tay), Johnson attempts to narrate his life story which has the listeners captivated. The story is well received, and Miller finds himself bringing Dirt back on the show for several days to boost his ratings. 

The majority of the story unfolds in Joe’s mind, as he was the one telling his experiences on air to Dennis. Narrative-wise, as I kept viewing the movie, I became increasingly concerned with how such a character as Dirt developed, as it seemed to me he was purposefully trying to portray himself as a mentally handicapped person. Even with the narratives, flashbacks and stories where NO-ONE is physically attacking him, the man does a great job of proving to everyone that he’s terribly slow and dull.

As I mentioned previously, the film is made up speakers except some of the sketches move at a fast pace like when Dirt takes on an alligator farm job where the whole skit’s climax ‘where Dirt is bitten and spit out by a large gator is shown in the preview’ has been saved for the last. In many other skits including this one, children often act when Dirt as a child drags a ‘meteorite’ around in red wagon talking to it. As for Dirt, that’s entirely different; there aren’t all the film’s treasures, for instance, how this meteorite, which is a piece of excrement from a jet aircraft, was released in flight somehow reaching Earth, because of the frost. The trailer has all too many of the movies gags ruined in it so watching the movie is similar to hearing a friend tell long jokes that are all predictable where everyone already knows the punch line.

For people that found the beans and franks joke from There’s Something About Mary funny, and rely on Scary Movie’s nut sack as comic relief and not the other way around, this is comedy at its best. Why the hell not? Expect to watch a dog with ten shots with the nuts frozen to the porch in the remaining two minutes (presumably these shots will stretch whenever he tries to move away from the porch, or things would not be hilarious, would they?) Expect humping dogs. Expect poor Joe getting viciously buttf***ed by more than 10% of the population of Wyoming.

Expect jokes about incest. Expect joker who is feces-covered. Expect the jokes about lighting farts on a matchstick. Expect to be cringed at by so many different things that you would wonder if they should have really said that. On the scale of PG-13 films, this one had a different reception: children under 13 had so much fun and laughter the audience will never forget. however, that is not the case for the upper 13s. Most of the people in the older group were stuttering to cope up with the laughter or full in shame and embarrassment and just trying to snuggle further down the seats.

During the viewing of the film, everybody sees what even Joe does not accept his parents purposely abandoned him in the Grand Canyon. However, Joe has not lost hope even after a quarter of a century and he still needs to seek them out. The last half an hour of the film is dedicated to finding answers to the question where he lost them, although this is the part of the film where I feel you can afford to lose concentration.

It doesn’t take a very inventive person to predict plenty of overused cliché: the nice guy wins, the mean bad guy does not get the chick, and most importantly everyone is happy regardless of the fact whether the man is wearing a mullet or not.

Two of my friends and I shot a bunch of Klins from the NBA on the way home from the cinema. There is a scene in the storyline, where Dirt is baffled when a nice old lady offers to sell him her Hemi convertible for the change in his pockets (mere pennies at the most). Why?

The reason for the formation of the entire storyline of this movie is based the almost unbearable fact that Joe cannot recollect his parent’s last name. It has already been brought up in a monologue, last game with his little sister in which he recalls,” Daddy hated you, that’s the reason why daddy raped Joe Dirt.” This time around, he is separated from his parents at the tender age of eight years. He’s eight? He’s never known his parents last name? Why? This is not a pet peeve, this is the German shepherd of unanswered questions around which the plot revolves.

On that note, I wonder where Dirt’s sister was, as I keep saying through flashback montages of his childhood, where is she? The parents come in but no sister is around. You cannot start a joke without waiting for the punchline. I am convinced that her fragment is lying somewhere on the floor in the editing studio.

A memorable moment from the oil rig goes when an oil worker believes it’s appropriate to first beat up Dirt, then casually stroll over to the fire and pee on it. I guess this is customary in the oil fields. Of course, this follows with a joke because now Dirt has his time to smirk who cares about the pee-burners?! Apparently, effeminate men burning in flames is a joke these days!

Dirt and an Indian guy who he meets on his journeys, Kicking Wing, filled a washtub with lighter fluid. Worst still, they decided it would be a great idea to shoot Roman candles at it. Considering that it was for entertainment purposes, admittedly, I felt their creativity was a little bit lacking. I put two months on Spade being sued for starting a series of Youtube videos where kids replicate the stunt only to end up burning their house down.

Generally, the film wasn’t that bad. The jokes work well enough and the storyline is a way to suppose them together, no more. Christopher Walken, Brittany Daniel, Rosanna Arquette, Jaime Pressly and Kid Rock all really know how to be white trash. Erik Per Sullivan (Dewey, from Malcom in the Middle) gives good performances as little Joe Dirt as well. Dennis Miller does well of performing, uh, himself.

I am a sucker for 70s guitar rock so I liked the film’s soundtrack. If you appreciated so much the 80s Element every second in The Wedding Singer, you will appreciate this one more Joe Dirt’s butt rock ode is unmistakable and at every sight you have an AC/DC shirt and Def Leppard poster. Outrageous patrons for the flick abounds a muscle car, mullet and a goatee.

David Spade was highly entertaining with Chris Farley, and here Spade tries to carry the whole flick nonetheless, it might just be too much for even the Great Sarcastic One to make the orphaned Dirt seem endearing.

Although, Spade is at his best when he cut people with his sharp tongue and witticism. This is something that was not exhibited in the film, Joe Dirt. Spade stretches out here and plays a new style of character here, one that mostly made me sad as it reminded me of how funny he “used to be.”

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