"The Pest". What can I say? I had never heard of the guy who plays the Pest in this movie, but it is clear that this flick was supposed to launch his career into the stellar skies, similar to the effect 'Ace Venture: Pet Detective' had on Jim Carrey.
The story, for what it's worth, is simple. The Pest owes the scottish mafia (yes, the scottish mafia, complete with token kilts and hats on) $50.000, so he agrees to let some nazis (yes, some nazis) pay him $50.000 to try and kill him within 24 hours. As plots go, that's not the worst I've come across. Not the best, either, but it's not a total cliche. So far, so good.
So, off we go, into a movie where the plot and the characters are completely secondary to scenes whos only merit is giving The Pest an opportunity to dress up as some hideous stereotype. Not one major ethnic group is left unscathed by The Pest's 'subtle-as-a-world-war' protrayals of them. These ingenious protrayals involve the Pest, dressed up to look like, say, a jewish rabbi, and acting like the Pest saying things like 'meshugginger'. The acting skills involved are not huge.
When he is dressed as himself, he simply tries to steal the show by making mildly funny faces, saying extremely moronic things, grinning all the time and dancing for no reason. Sounds fun? Well, it isn't.
OK. I have stated earlier that the plot isn't too shabby. So, we can bear with the all-overpowering, talentless antics of The Pest, can't we? Well, no, but even if we could I'm not sure you'd want to. What happens in the actual movie is about as puerile as it gets.
Someone has told the script writer that the basic, human emotions are what makes a script great. This is true, but the writer seems to have misunderstood this and built the entire script around basic, human functions instead. In a harrowing 5-minute sequence, for instance, the 'laughs' involve farting in the forest, using a sock to wipe with, nazis sniffing said sock, overblown homosexual innuendo, vomiting in the face and finally bird doo on the face. This is of course all swamped in The Pest saying stupid things and acting stupidly.
The bad guys, mainly the nazis, are of course also mindblowingly stupid, and the Pest is never really threatened by them. In the bleak moment near the end where it seems the bad guys have won, I was in fact relieved by the hope that I wouldn't see the Pest again. No such luck, of course.
A good example of bad guy stupidity coupled with The Pest's pointless and irritating behaviour is found in the scene, where the Pest delivers chinese food to the bad guys. He walks in, observed by the bad guys, and immediately starts riding around the living room on an antique hellebarde wearing an antique helmet. Thus diverting attention from himself, he starts stealing stuff right under the nose of main nazi, who doesn't notice anything. Ah yes, how believable.
The script supervisor also seems to have read through the script and saying: "No, no, there is a 2 minute window in the film where somebody's groin is not in the action or dialogue. Change that, so that The Pest's groin bursts into flames and he takes all his clothes off."
This is a bad film. It tries to spoof itself by having the nazis laugh maniacally for about four hours (please let it be a spoof) but you just can't do it with such lousy base material. It diverts into momentary surrealism a la Zuckerman films once in a while, but it's pointless every time, so you just ignore it and chalk it up to The Pest acting so stupidly, that the natural laws of science have switched this turkey of a movie of the TV and gone to bed.
The story, for what it's worth, is simple. The Pest owes the scottish mafia (yes, the scottish mafia, complete with token kilts and hats on) $50.000, so he agrees to let some nazis (yes, some nazis) pay him $50.000 to try and kill him within 24 hours. As plots go, that's not the worst I've come across. Not the best, either, but it's not a total cliche. So far, so good.
So, off we go, into a movie where the plot and the characters are completely secondary to scenes whos only merit is giving The Pest an opportunity to dress up as some hideous stereotype. Not one major ethnic group is left unscathed by The Pest's 'subtle-as-a-world-war' protrayals of them. These ingenious protrayals involve the Pest, dressed up to look like, say, a jewish rabbi, and acting like the Pest saying things like 'meshugginger'. The acting skills involved are not huge.
When he is dressed as himself, he simply tries to steal the show by making mildly funny faces, saying extremely moronic things, grinning all the time and dancing for no reason. Sounds fun? Well, it isn't.
OK. I have stated earlier that the plot isn't too shabby. So, we can bear with the all-overpowering, talentless antics of The Pest, can't we? Well, no, but even if we could I'm not sure you'd want to. What happens in the actual movie is about as puerile as it gets.
Someone has told the script writer that the basic, human emotions are what makes a script great. This is true, but the writer seems to have misunderstood this and built the entire script around basic, human functions instead. In a harrowing 5-minute sequence, for instance, the 'laughs' involve farting in the forest, using a sock to wipe with, nazis sniffing said sock, overblown homosexual innuendo, vomiting in the face and finally bird doo on the face. This is of course all swamped in The Pest saying stupid things and acting stupidly.
The bad guys, mainly the nazis, are of course also mindblowingly stupid, and the Pest is never really threatened by them. In the bleak moment near the end where it seems the bad guys have won, I was in fact relieved by the hope that I wouldn't see the Pest again. No such luck, of course.
A good example of bad guy stupidity coupled with The Pest's pointless and irritating behaviour is found in the scene, where the Pest delivers chinese food to the bad guys. He walks in, observed by the bad guys, and immediately starts riding around the living room on an antique hellebarde wearing an antique helmet. Thus diverting attention from himself, he starts stealing stuff right under the nose of main nazi, who doesn't notice anything. Ah yes, how believable.
The script supervisor also seems to have read through the script and saying: "No, no, there is a 2 minute window in the film where somebody's groin is not in the action or dialogue. Change that, so that The Pest's groin bursts into flames and he takes all his clothes off."
This is a bad film. It tries to spoof itself by having the nazis laugh maniacally for about four hours (please let it be a spoof) but you just can't do it with such lousy base material. It diverts into momentary surrealism a la Zuckerman films once in a while, but it's pointless every time, so you just ignore it and chalk it up to The Pest acting so stupidly, that the natural laws of science have switched this turkey of a movie of the TV and gone to bed.