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The Movie:
Warning.... Warning.... Bad Taste Alert.... Reader discretion is advised:
When I heard that Tom Green was writing, directing and starring in his own
major motion picture I wasn't sure what to expect. Now don't get me wrong I
love Tom Green but up until this point I had only seen him in small doses,
a few minutes here, a few minutes there. I had seen his show on TV and
found it to be hilarious, I loved him as Barry the crazy campus tour guide
who ate a live mouse in "Road Trip" and who could forget his cameo as "The
Chad" captain of the Love boat in "Charlie's Angels". So I had plenty of
exposure to his crazy antics, however all these things had one thing in
common. No more then 8 minutes of air time in a row, in some cases as
little as 2 minutes then the focus changed to someone else. So having seen
that, I was wondering how I was going to handle Tom Green for 95
consecutive minutes.
Before we go on and dive in to the happenings in this movie. Let's take a
second to clarify the definition of what a movie is (Definition provided by
Dictionary.com)
movie noun : a form of entertainment that enacts a story by a sequence of
images giving the illusion of continuous movement;
By that definition "Freddy Got Fingered" really doesn't qualify as a movie.
While it has many aspects of a movie (Scripted, Directed, Acted etc), it's
merely a series of zany gags, most of which are completely over the top.
While there is an underlying story, it doesn't even try to tie the events
of the movie together. Tom Green goes from one gag to another and for the
most part the gags do not even serve a purpose. They are just a bunch of
sometimes funny, sometimes nasty gags that the viewer is bombarded with one
after another for the length of the movie. The good news is that each gag
is over fairly quickly and if you don't like one there's a chance there's
another one that you might like coming up soon.
"Freddy Got Fingered" is the story of a 28 year old reject wannabe animator
named Gord (Green) who goes to Hollywood when he gets a job at a cheese
sandwich factory. In addition to working at the factory, Gord tries to shop
his drawings to an animation studio owner named Dave Davidson played by
Anthony Michael Hall. When he gets shot down he returns home to move back
in with his parents to try to come up with an idea for a better cartoon
that isn't stupid and makes sense. Once Gord gets back to town, arguments
with his father surrounding jobs and his life occur and the chaos ensues.
Along the way he meets a girl who he falls in love with named Betty (Marisa
Coughlan) who happens to be a wheelchair bound amateur rocket scientist
whose strange fetishes include enjoying having her paralyzed legs being
caned by a bamboo stick and later a golf club.
If you don't find jokes about disabled people funny, then maybe you'll find
jokes involving a neighborhood kid constantly getting hit in the face by
objects or injured for no apparent reason funny. Or maybe an encounter
where Gord goes to the hospital to visit his friend and ends up delivering
a baby where he then proceeds to cut the umbilical cord with his teeth is
your cup of tea. If that doesn't cut it for you maybe you'll enjoy sight
gags involving Green and a horse. The comedy in "Freddy Got Fingered" is
always the stupid kind of funny, but also very nasty. Let's face it, if
you enjoy dumb gross out humor, you will find the movie extremely funny.
Some things were so over the top I almost hurt myself laughing. However
having said that, I laughed at some things that were really low brow humor
type jokes and I'm not 100% proud of myself for laughing at those scenes.
The performances in Freddy Got Fingered really help make the movie. Tom
Green is Gord Brody. At this point in time I think it's safe to say Tom
Green is a funny man, he can play a wide variety of comedic characters but
regardless of that, it's very hard to look at Tom Green on screen and take
him seriously. Even if it appears he is being serious he will soon break
out of that seriousness and doing something over the top. Will the world
ever be able to take Tom Green serious?. Only time will tell. Marisa
Coughlan (Teaching Mrs Tingle, TV's Wasteland) who is best known for her
re-enactment of the famous scene from "The Exorcist" in "Teaching Mrs
Tingle" gives an excellent performance as a sexy, sexually charged
wheelchair bound Nurse/Amateur Rocket Scientist who's goal it is to build a
rocket powered wheelchair. Marisa is a very capable actress and shows in
this role that she has the potential to be one of Hollywood's future stars.
Rip Torn turns in an over the top performance as Gord's father who has just
about had enough of his son's childish antics. Gord's brother Freddy is
played by Eddie Kaye Thomas who is best known as Finch from American Pie.
Rounding out the supporting cast is Harland Williams, Julie Hagerty and
local Vancouver actor Jackson Davies. Also noteworthy is a cameo by Green's
wife Drew Barrymore who he met on the set of "Charlie's Angels". I'd also
like to give a shout-out to the kid who play's Gord's boss at the sandwich
store, as he and I worked on a TV show once. I don't recall his name, but
he's a cool guy and it was fun to see him opposite Tom Green.
So should you go see "Freddy Got Fingered" only you can answer that for
yourself. Is it funny? I think it is, but if you don't like gross out humor
or over the top antics then maybe Freddy isn't for you. It's not for
everyone, that's for sure. It's not really a movie per say, it's more like
an extended version of The Tom Green show with a budget and actors being
the brunt of the jokes as opposed to regular run of the mill people, but I
still I enjoyed it. If gross out movies are your cup of tea and your name
isn't Freddy, it's time to "get fingered".
(Movie Review Written April 2001)
The DVD
VIDEO: 20th Century Fox brings "Freddy Got Fingered" to home viewers in it's
original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 which is also enhanced for anamorphic
displays. Freddy isn't the most visually interesting film I've ever seen
and it certainly isn't the most beautifully shot film either. That aside
the DVD does accurately recreate the theatrical experience. Colors are
strong and well saturated and there's no bleeding. Sharpness and detail are
generally good but the film does have a bit of a soft focus or hazy look to
it in places. As for negative aspects of the transfer there aren't really
any as the only things I noticed were a couple of small marks and a
scratch. The print is free of grain and edge enhancement is nowhere to be
found. Although this transfer won't go down as the next reference disc it's
yet another in the long line of excellent Fox transfers.
Video Rating : 9/10
SOUND:
"Freddy Got Fingered" suffers from "comedy audio syndrome", which is a
condition that plagues the majority of comedies on DVD. Although it's a
Dolby Digital 5.1 experience, the action remains firmly in the front 3
channels with the exception of one or two of the more action oriented
scenes. The film's alternative/punk rock soundtrack packs a fairly heavy
punch when it needs to but some of the tracks seemed a little lower in the
mix then I remember. The best example of this would be the scene at Betty's
apartment where "I Just Wanna Love You (Give it to Me) by Jay Z is playing.
In the theater I remember this song really coming across quite loudly with
a lots of bass and that simply isn't the case here. Dialogue is always
clear and easy to hear so you won't miss any of the humor due to laughter.
The LFE channel does get a few light workouts but remains silent for the
most part. There's nothing in the way of split surround effects even though
the film did have a couple chances to make use of them. The inconsistency
of the music's volume level hurts this track slightly knocking it's score
down half a point.
Audio : 8/10
EXTRAS::
Now that I've been reviewing for a number of months I've seen my fair share
of DVDs. Some have lots of features while others have minimal or no extra
features. As I look down at the press releases for some of the upcoming
titles the studios keep piling more and more extra content on these discs.
Commercials for DVDs often boast over 4 hours of special features. My
question is does anyone actually sit there and watch everything on the
disc. In my case I'd say 99% of the time I go through the entire disc. I've
cut a few corners here and there and skipped the odd chapter on a
commentary or only watched a few minutes of a featurette but as a reviewer
I like to be pretty thorough. I've said it before and I'll say it again
there are some movies that I want there to be boat loads of extras on and
others that I'm not entirely disappointed when they aren't. Heck it makes
it far easier to review a disc when there aren't 4 audio commentaries or a
couple of hour long documentaries. "Freddy Got Fingered" however is one
disc that I was hoping would have a lots of extras on. Being a 20th Century
Fox release my wish was granted and Fox has bestowed a number of extras for
us Tom Green fans.
Like the movie itself if your a fan of Tom Green then you'll like his audio
commentary track. If your not a fan of Tom's somewhat strange and offbeat
humor then maybe this isn't the track for you. Green who served as the
film's writer/director/lead actor isn't the world's most intelligent fellow
but he does have a few insights into the directorial process here and
there. Green spends the majority of the time talking about how he basically
created the movie for two reasons; for his friends and to see what he
could get away with. Sometimes he seems extremely focused and other times
he sort of falls into a trance and simply describes the on screen action.
The thing that differs this from a normal audio track is that he basically
insults himself for doing it. Early on in the proceedings every time Rip
Torn shows up or has a line he goes "That's Rip Torn". Then he insults
himself saying that "he's stupid and that people want to hear interesting
stories". This tone continues throughout the track. The absolute highlight
of this track was that he was so unprepared and was just having a good
time. His stories about how scenes changed at the last minute because he
didn't think the original idea was funny were hilarious. I was laughing
almost non-stop throughout this track something is a rarity for a
commentary track. Most commentaries don't have a high rewatchability factor
for me but this one will join the elite few that I spin for friends or when
I just need to have a good laugh. Other tracks in this group include all of
Kevin Smith's tracks and the "Dude, Where's My Car?" track. It should be
noted that this track isn't for kids. Green is swearing constantly and that
only adds to the comedy level. Kids, if you get this disc then don't play
the commentary or the movie for that matter around your parents. In a rare
move I was watching the commentary upstairs on the modest stereo TV and DVD
player I bought for my parents because the theater room was too cold and I
didn't want to wait for the heater to warm it up. Well my mom came in half
way through when she got home from work. I warned her what I was watching
but she actually listened to the last half of the track with me. She didn't
seem too disgusted by it but then again she learned when I was 15 that if I
wanted to see something and she forbid me from doing it that I would just
find a way around it. Still I was surprised that she didn't tell me to turn
it off or watch it downstairs. I guess she's pretty cool in that
regard. Tom Green fans will find this downright hilarious and it's almost
worth the price of the disc alone.
The second audio related special feature is the World Premiere audio track
which was something that I didn't really find all that cool. Basically it's
an audio track recorded at the premiere of the movie where you can listen
to the people in the audience laughing or in some cases not laughing at the
movie. While it did bring back some memories of the opening night crowd
experience it was a little distracting and made me wonder if I was weird
for laughing at some of the things others didn't. A valiant effort but not
something I'm looking to revisit soon.
Selected Audio Commentary with Rip Torn, Harland Williams and Marisa
Coughlan is not unlike the Coyote Commentary track on Disney's "Coyote
Ugly" disc. Basically instead of having these people hang out and comment
on the whole movie they just record comments for selected scenes. These
scenes are selectable off a menu and this track can't be accessed directly
from the feature. Initially i had read that Torn, Williams and Coughlan
were going to be on the main commentary with Green so I was a bit surprised
to find that they were only commenting on selected scenes. This could just
be another case where I didn't read the press release carefully or I read
it too quickly. That said I still love that someone other then Green
contributed to the disc because the rest of the features are pretty much
centered around Green. Also for some reason Marisa only comments on 3 of
her scenes when there were at least another one or two I'd have like to
heard her talk about.
The PG Rated version of "Freddy Got Fingered" was perhaps the one thing I
was looking forward to the most on the disc. It's no secret that from the
start of production this movie was going to get an "R". If the studio had
gone for a PG-13 rating then the movie would have been even more of a
failure for the studio. What's left in this PG rated version is essentially
a narrative that changes the film entirely and it's damn funny. I headed
straight for this when the disc arrived and within seconds was in
hysterics. I wasn't in a good mood that day but this feature turned that
around quickly. I think what makes this even more special is that Green
actually submitted this cut of the film to the MPAA and they certified it.
I wonder how many edited cuts he had to submit before they settled on this
one.
The Freddy Got Fingered Special is a 20 minute documentary looking at the
filming of the movie. It's primarily a promotional tool for Green to use to
show clips and provide interesting information about the film. There's a
healthy number of film clips despite the fact that most of the film's best
jokes are too risque for TV. The clips that remain are often censored
because even they are "too much for TV". If any Green fans are on the fence
about watching this then let me say one thing. Behind the Scenes footage.
That's right there's some cool behind the scenes footage including a couple
alternate versions of the "Sausage Song" and a good segment with a greedy
hot dog vendor. It's got to be seen to be believed folks.
The Deleted Scenes section of the disc was one of the only areas I was
disappointed in. After seeing the movie three times in the theaters and
once or twice through other means I was hoping there would be more great
material that didn't make it. Although the disc has 6 scenes with optional
commentary by Green none of them lived up to my expectations. I guess they
were cut for the right reason. One notable scene was cut due to costly
music rights and that appears on the disc with no audio. Green does mention
on the commentary how to cue up the song to match the playback of the
scene. Canadian Green fans will also recognize talk show host Mike Bullard
in a small cameo as a cop. Playing that scene with the commentary allows
the viewer to access an easter egg of Tom on Mike's Show. This section is
a bit of a letdown on otherwise great set of special features.
Also included are the film's trailers and TV spots, a short featurette
where many of the clips used in the TV spots originated, a soundtrack spot
and the standard cast and crew biographies.
Extras Rating : 8.5/10
Final Thoughts: Ok, I admit it - while I generally like more adult oriented films like
"American Beauty" or "Moulin Rouge", at the end of the day I also like
stupid comedies like "Freddy Got Fingered". I like to just sit down and
laugh and Tom Green is one guy who never fails to crack me up. Fans of Tom
and the movie will be more then happy with this disc. If your easily
offended "Freddy Got Fingered" isn't the disc for you. If you like gross
out humor then it doesn't get much grosser then "Freddy Got
Fingered". Fox's DVD offers plenty of cool supplements, excellent video
and above average audio quality. Is "Freddy" the right movie for you? That's
your decision and yours alone.
Disc Rating : 8/10
Review by Mark McLeod, 10/21/01
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