Tom
Green was at his career peak when he made this film and the years
leading up to Freddy Got Fingered were triumphant for him.
His MTV show was a breakout hit, he beat testicle cancer, he was
dating Drew Barrymore and he even hosted Saturday Night
Live. It was this wave of success that enabled Green
to pull together a good cast and lots of celebrity cameos for
his directorial debut, Freddy
Got Fingered. But would Green's unique blend of
comedy translate from the small screen to the big one?
In
the film, Tom Green is a Portland, Oregon, loser who dreams of
becoming an animator for a Hollywood cartoon company. After
lying to a receptionist, Drew Barrymore (Charlie's
Angels, E.T.),
he's able to track down the cartoon company's CEO played by
Anthony Michael Hall (The
Dead Zone, The
Breakfast Club). Green's drawings of a cat with X-ray
vision are quickly rejected and he returns home to Portland.
Green's disappointed parents are played by Rip Torn (Men
In Black, The
Beastmaster, Robocop
3) and Julie Hagerty (Airplane,
What
About Bob?).
They don't know
what to do with their 28-year-old son. He's a loser and can't
get a job. He
spends his days torturing his father with various pranks like
making sausage piano contraptions and taking a shower while
wearing scuba gear. All this family trauma lands the family
in therapy. Tom Green tells the psychiatrist that his father "fingers" his
25-year-old younger brother played by Eddie Kaye Thomas (American
Pie) in the basement. The police take the little brother
away to the Institute for Sexually Molested children and
his mother leaves his father for Shaquille
O'Neal.
Green's girlfriend,
a paraplegic blonde who likes to have her legs whacked with
bamboo, creates a rocket propelled wheelchair, inspires Green
and he finally comes up with a good cartoon idea, a zebra-human
hybrid family from Africa who moves to America. He sells
his idea for a million dollars and now he has lots of money
to to use on expensive items to torture his father including
night vision, helicopters, and a construction crew who moves
his father's house to Pakistan. It's after this final house
moving prank, that Green and his father make up and the film
ends.
As
you can see, the plot is loose, but Green does pile on his visual
gross-out humor that has made him famous. Here are my favorite
Top 10 Green moments in the film:
The
movie has it moments, but Green loses something in the transition
from television's loose structure to the formal demands of film.
His MTV television show allowed him to freely run around conducting
his pranks without the bother of a plot or character development.
In Freddy
Got Fingered you wait through the bad plot waiting for the next
Green gross out moment. Tom Green is talented, but needs to be packaged
better. He did a great job in the movie Road
Trip and adds a comedic wackiness to any cast. He just isn't
ready to hold a movie on his own yet.
Suggested
Snack:
Cheetos and Dr.
Pepper
Watch
It With: Teenage boys.
How
you'll Feel at the End of the movie: Like there
was no plot.
If
you liked this film try: Road
Trip, American
Pie 2, licking yourself. |