Yes, everything you may have heard (excepting that bizarre New York Times review) about Tom Green’s infamous directorial debut (and, hopefully, finale) is true. Not only is this unfunny, disgusting disgrace the absolute worst film of the year, it is one of the worst I have ever seen. For the record, the story has green Green not play the fingered Freddy, but his seriously disturbed brother Gord, who makes life hell for everyone around him–particularly his father (Rip Torn)–as he pursues his dream of becoming an animator. But story is irrelevant here; it’s all about the set pieces. See Gord give a horse a handjob. See Gord wear a dear carcass. See Gord lick the bloody bone protruding from a friend’s broken leg. See Gord cut a baby’s umbilical cord with his teeth. If the thought of such scenes don’t horrify you, you probably are a die-hard Green fan.
And it will take a die-hard Green fan to really enjoy the ridiculously comprehensive DVD edition Fox has released of this cinematic atrocity. However, the Freddy Got Fingered’s many detractors (to put it mildly) would be hard-pressed to not appreciate the obvious effort that went into this platter. The nicely animated menus lead to the usual trailer and TV spots and making-of featurette (here, one that was produced for MTV), as well as an amusing-in-concept-only PG-rated edit of the film that runs for all of three minutes. Selected scenes are viewable with commentary by three of Green’s co-stars: Torn, Marisa Coughlan, and Harland Williams. Torn and Coughlan deserve some sort of credit for attempting to speak seriously about this thoroughly unserious movie, but Williams, slurring his words while going off on such pleasant subjects as “blood farts,” apparently was trying to out-annoy Green.
But, of course, that’s an impossibility. The selection of deleted scenes are viewable with Green commentary, and does he ever work overtime to make the scenes worse than they already are; whenever he runs out of things to say, he launches into strange noises. Don’t ask. In the commentary for the film proper, Green revels in rambling non-sequiturs (at one point Green says that he maybe shouldn’t have recorded a commentary since people would think he was an idiot after listening; Tom, everyone already thinks you’re an idiot, commentary or not), which seems appropriate for this senseless film but makes for equally frustrating viewing. That just reflects what this movie and DVD really is: one huge ego trip, and evidence doesn’t come any stronger than the final special feature: a feature-length recording of the audience at film’s premiere, which means lots of hooting, hollering, laughing, and approving applause–in other words, a reaction universes removed from the reality of what played out in multiplexes across the country earlier this year.
Specifications: 1.85 anamorphic widescreen; English 5.1 Surround; English and French Dolby Surround; English and Spanish subtitles; English closed captioning.
