Joe Dirt (2001)

From my favorite movies..

Excellent but underrated film

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

"Joe Dirt" offers a lot of laughs, which is the raison d'être of any comedy. And there are many different types of humor: sight gags, 1-2-3 punches, pratfalls, ridicule, absurdities, etc. Some of the humor is broad, raunchy, burlesque and low-brow, but other humor is fairly sophisticated. Some jokes are laugh-out-loud funny, while others are subtle. On a jokes per minute scale, the film ranks among the top. The film has significant and substantial problems. It is difficult to decide which is worse: the title, the cover/poster art, or log lines like "He came. He cleaned. He conquered," or "Trailer trash wig-wearin' acid wash jean lovin' rock concert T-shirt sportin' hero." None really describes a movie that I would have expected to find particularly interesting and I made no effort to view the movie until fourteen years after its theatrical release, although I can remember seeing it at video shops and had several opportunities when I was at a loss for something amusing to view. The film is somewhat a parody of "Forrest Gump," which is also a title that says little about the movie's subject matter, unless one is familiar with the book. But the FG producers were somewhat limited by the book's title, whereas the producers of JD could have been more imaginative and incorporated a superlative, an action verb or a recognizable archetype. The promotional artwork relied heavily on an image of a guy holding a mop. People who mop fill a necessary function, but they're usually relegated to after hours when they present less of a nuisance and distraction. In Bangkok, it's impossible to get through a day without encountering about a dozen people sweeping or mopping. Thais sweep and mop everything at all hours of the day and night and still leave their shoes at the entrance. But the reaction is usually to avoid the individual, not take an interest in what or why they are pushing broom. The promo lines fall somewhere between misleading and uninformative. Joe doesn't really conquer. Everybody loves jeans. The wig is a recurring gag that doesn't work or would be much more effective if the hair were natural. It's a bit gross and makes no sense that an adult would wear the same wig worn as a child. JD shines a mirror on the rest of society and holds us up to ridicule for our prejudices, assumptions and tendencies to judge others by superficial standards. These societal prejudices are personified by a radio shock jock played by Dennis Miller who delivers a series of zingers that seem less and less funny as the audience develops sympathy for Joe. Lampooning the audience is a risky form of humor and JD does it adroitly. The viewer is placed in the uncomfortable position of recognizing ones own biases. The movie offers quite a few talented actors in supporting roles that they embrace and play to the hilt. Production values are more than adequate with a refreshing lack of jiggly-cam shots. It's really nice to watch a movie where the filmmakers have enough respect for their audience to plan their shots and use tripods or other support systems for their cameras.

I used not to expect much from (David Spade). But this time, it is different.The plot of the radio show is creative, with a lot of comic situations. (David Spade) is relatively funny, doing his serious moments rightly. The meaning of "sometimes the journey is more important than its goal" is unique and well served. The pace is vivid, maybe too vivid to make anything deep or touching, but it worked for making such a light comedy anyway, with kind of human character too. The soundtrack caught the 1980s spirit wonderfully, and strengthened the emotional side, if not carried it out.(Christopher Walken), who almost doesn't say no to any movie offered to him, is a good addition for every thing he's in, even if he's there for a few scenes, and obviously this movie needed a name beside (David Spade) to be sold. (Rosanna Arquette) did nothing memorable. Again, another name. OK, to sum it up, this is a case where (Spade) was the cast, and everybody else was in a cameo. That could have sounded bad, but surprisingly not here! THOUGH, WAIT A BIG MINUTE! Did this movie contain some really REALLY dirty humor? Well, HELL YEAH !The problem is that the nice movie we were talking about savored showing freaky and ugly stuff, while it could avoid it easily. For instance, instead of seeing the sweetheart's father's leg cut off, it was possible to see the train hits him to fly in the sky, then lands in a cactus plantation, something of that sort. Some, if not most, of the jokes are involving farts, blood, feces, private parts, sex, amputated legs or fingers, …to the end of the cheap filthy list. But apparently the writers, Spade himself and his buddy Fred Wolf, chose their road earlier, planning that as a big part, and if you have doubts; remember their movie's title !There is a plot hole concerning how the lead believed that his parents died 25 years ago, while he was told that they left their home 15 years ago?! And they never told us why those parents left their boy earlier? Or where is his sister? They just forgot these matters. The movie is beautifully crowded with many small chuckles here and there, like the man who says wisely "Home is where you think it is" while the lead mishears it, thinking it a totally another thing! However, it has one big laugh, and I mean the lead's dream of exploding a nuclear bomb for mere playing. That was genuinely hilarious ! This is a swift fun, with dirt. I love swift fun, but not dirt; especially when it's shown as fun !

Forgive the title and you should find a warm, funny film that concerns an unfortunate yokel with a permanent mullet hairstyle (Spade) working as a cleaner at a radio station when a prominent DJ (Miller) sees the opportunity to exploit his pathetic story for the ratings of his drive-time programme. But the sorrowful tale earns a cult following as Dirt re-acquaints with his first romance (Daniel) and encounters an assortment of weirdos as he seeks to discover the disappearance of his parents when he was a child.Although in some passages Spade is perhaps too smart for his own good, he still pulls off the likable but hopelessly pitiful Joe Dirt (or Deertay as he pronounces it), and his encounters with Christopher Walken as a former mob boss in the witness protection programme, Brian Thompson as a creepy Buffalo Bill serial killer a la "Silence of the Lambs", and future "My Name is Earl" trailer trash Jaime Pressly as a carney with whom he's sleeping and who might just be his sister (which prompts an hilarious scene).There's a number of memorable moments as Joe gets pushed around by the thugs of this world, while his endearing personality reaches out and inspires the rest, a champion for the underdog, as they befriend and protect him from further embarrassment and humiliation. The ending is satisfying and overall the movie hits the right note, merging good humour with dollops of sympathy, sincerity and even a couple of moving moments. Not what you'd expect from the title and personnel and well worth a look.

I just thought that it was amusing reading the reviews all the way from 2001 to the present. This movie received almost entirely negative reviews when it first came out, but now there is nothing but positive reviews.It seems that most people that saw this when it first came out were expecting something closer to Tommyboy or Blacksheep, with David Spade portraying a sarcastic sidekick with little more to offer than the occasional zinger. Instead we have a great tale of an average Joe that makes keeps a positive attitude even though he is constantly thrown into hilarious (for us) situations.Whats the deal? It's a great film, maybe it was ahead of its time.