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| Rebecca (Jenny McCarthy) visits a psychic. |
Release Date: Sept. 23, 2005. Running Time: 91 minutes. Written by: Jenny McCarthy. Producers (takes deep breath): John Mallory Asher, B. J. Davis, Rod Hamilton, Kimberley Kates, Michael Manassen, Jenny McCarthy, Trent Walford. Director: John Mallory Asher.
THE PLOT:
Would-be photographer Rebecca Sommers (Jenny McCarthy) is completely, absolutely in love with her boyfriend, Richard (Victor Webster). She is certain that she has found "The One."
Then she comes home to discover him in bed with another woman.
After a massive emotional breakdown, a psychic (Kathy Griffin) informs her that she must learn "many lessons" before finding her "white pony." Which is only slightly more helpful than her friend Carrie (Kam Heskin), who sets her up to accompany her on a double date with the nebbishy producers of a movie she's auditioned for.
That date ends badly (and messily), but this is only the beginning of Rebecca's odyssey. She searches for one normal guy to date and make Richard jealous, but every man she meets is a pervert or a lunatic - or, in the case of one stage magician (Guillermo Diaz), both at the same time.
And all the while, best friend John (Eddie Kay Thomas) offers emotional support while wishing he could get himself to express his own feelings for Rebecca...
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| John (Eddie Kaye Thomas) attempts to cheer Rebecca up, while hiding his own feelings for her. |
CHARACTERS:
Rebecca: She's supposedly a photographer, but she never shows the slightest interest in photography. Given McCarthy's general presence and the way her character dresses, it would make more sense for Rebecca to be a struggling actress. John at one point says that she teaches him to be a better person just by being his friend, and I wonder what he's talking about. All we see, across the interminable 90 minutes of this movie, is Rebecca feeling sorry for herself - when she's not trying to make her ex-boyfriend jealous, that is. The character doesn't seem to have any ambition beyond "new boyfriend," and that about sums up her personality, so it's hard to summon up much sympathy.
John: I hope Eddie Kaye Thomas fired his agent. First Freddy Got Fingered and now this? All he needed was an appearance in The Love Guru to complete the "worst comedies of the 2000s" hat trick. Thomas gets a few chuckles with reactions, such as when he stares up at a very tall woman who becomes inexplicably obsessed with him, but John doesn't have any more personality than Rebecca. I don't even know what he does for a living; all we ever learn about him is that he's in love with her but can't make himself say so.
Michelle: Carmen Electra's character is memorable... mainly because she spends the movie talking in exaggerated, stereotypical "black speak," as if she saw 1980's Airplane! and took the line, "I speak jive," as a personal challenge. At one point, a minor character actually stops to check: "You know you're white, right?" And... yeah, that's about all that's going on with her, though I suppose Electra gets a modicum of credit for taking her character's sole personality trait and running with it.
Richard: Rebecca's ex-boyfriend, a male model who keeps a life-sized underwear ad of himself prominently displayed in his home. He's vain enough that, after parking, he pauses to admire his own face in his side-view mirror. Rebecca's attempts to make him jealous continuously backfire, with her catching his attention just in time for him to see her in one humiliation after another, all of which he merrily laughs at.
Carrie: Rebecca's actress friend. Or should I say, "actress" friend. We glimpse Carrie's line readings at an audition, and they are truly horrible. The squeaky, little-girl voice that she uses could just about shatter glass, and she mostly dresses as if she's preparing for either a very specialized type of film or for midnight on Hollywood Boulevard. Kam Heskin's performance is deeply awful, bad enough to make the rest of the cast look good by comparison - and unfortunately, she's on screen quite a lot.
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| Rebecca's opening breakdown. It isn't funny, but at least Jenny McCarthy's going for it. |
"SAY SOMETHING NICE":
Jenny McCarthy's performance is fearless. Don't get me wrong, her acting is terrible. But she seems not only willing, but downright eager to abandon any semblance of dignity, and I can't help but have a certain respect for that.
After a brief prologue, the film opens with Rebecca having an extended, over-the-top breakdown on the street. She repeats, "Oh, my God!" multiple times in increasingly shrill tones, contorts her face, then squats like she's about to go to the bathroom with her clothes on. From there, she accosts prostitutes and a homeless man, all of whom respond perfectly rationally: by backing away from the crazy lady.
In the right hands, this willingness to go all-out could have led to some good comedy. Unfortunately, the director is John Mallory Asher, McCarthy's then-husband, whose directorial credits... well, let's just say that it's entirely possible that Dirty Love does not represent his worst movie.
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| Rebecca attempts to avoid her ex noticing her in a grocery store. |
THOUGHTS:
Dirty Love is cheap, crass, and gross. None of these are disqualifying traits for a comedy. There's Something About Mary more or less pioneered the late 1990s/early 2000 gross-out comedy, and it stands up as a pretty good movie.
No, Dirty Love has a bigger problem - It isn't funny.
I laughed exactly once in the entire movie. When an emotionally anguished Rebecca orders a sundae, the sympathetic clerk delivers a veritable Everest of ice cream to her. The moment works because it actually suits the scene, and the movie contents itself with presenting the visual, with no commentary beyond a silent double-take by Eddie Kaye Thomas. Given what passes for humor in the rest of the film, I can only assume this bit was improvised by the crew.
The gags revolve heavily around bodily excretions. Rebecca's least bad date ends with her getting vomited on while her ex-boyfriend watches and laughs. Later "jokes" see her getting sudden menstrual bleeding in a grocery store, which involves her sitting in a lake of her own blood; I'm pretty sure that much blood calls for an ambulance, not a Maxi pad. Multiple gags involve objects inserted into people's butts, because butts are apparently inherently hilarious. Precisely none of this is funny.
Now, sometimes an uneven comedy can just about skate by if the plot is well-structured. This script, the sole screenwriting credit by star Jenny McCarthy, barely has a plot. What passes for an emotional core is the non-relationship between Rebecca and John. John is first introduced sticking up for Rebecca to her ex-boyfriend, something that happens before we establish either his friendship with Rebecca or his unspoken feelings for her. John and Rebecca don't share even a second of screentime until almost a full third of the way into the movie.
Not that Rebecca is best off with John. This isn't a person who's ready for any relationship. She doesn't need "a nice guy," she needs to become halfway comfortable in her own skin. Had the film moved in that direction, it might at least have had a decent message buried underneath this miserable, mirthless odyssey. But even as surface-level an insight as that is beyond this picture.
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| John confronts Richard (Victor Webster) over his treatment of Rebecca. This happens before John and Rebecca share any screentime. |
THE OTHER NOMINEES:
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigalo: I sort of liked the first Deuce Bigalow, which was surprisingly sweet-natured for a film starring Rob Schneider, who I usually find to be the comedy equivalent of severe underarm odor. The sequel is more what I'd expect: crude and unfunny in a vaguely mean-spirited way. To the extent that it's remembered at all, it's mainly for Schneider throwing a hissy fit at an early negative review, mocking the critic for not having a Pulitzer Prize. This prompted Roger Ebert to step in to deliver his own review: Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks."
The Dukes of Hazzard: Bigscreen update of the late '70s/early '80s television hit. I watched the old show as a child, because approximately everyone of my generation did, but it's a piece best left to the past. I haven't seen the movie. I'm sure it's bad, but I doubt it's as bad as Dirty Love.
House of Wax: In-name-only remake of the 1953 Vincent Price thriller. The 1953 version is a well-structured film that holds up surprisingly well, with or without the (excellent) 3D effects. The remake is a mediocre slasher film, but it's no worse than any other mediocre slasher picture and probably doesn't belong on this list.
Son of the Mask: Infamously ill-conceived attempt to make a (too-belated) sequel to The Mask without Jim Carrey. By all accounts, it is wretched, possibly as bad as Dirty Love. It was also made for several times the budget of Dirty Love, which makes me think that it probably deserved the award. A low-budget indie comedy misfiring is standard; a big-budget effects-heavy comedy that's just as bad deserves more scorn.
OVERALL:
Dirty Love is a dreadful movie. It's cheap-looking, often disgusting, and relentlessly unfunny. On the plus side, if you're curious, as of this writing it is free to stream on Tubi (thank you, Tubi, for sparing me from spending any actual money on this offal). But even seeing it free, I can't help but come away wanting a refund.
Rating: Flushable Wipe - Used.
Worst Picture - 2004: Catwoman
Worst Picture - 2006: Basic Instinct 2 (not yet reviewed)
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