Larry The Cable Guy: Health Inspector

First, let me preface this review by painting a picture of how things work here at Itburnsusprecious.com. There are two ways a film will be reviewed by one of the editors-

 

1)      The editor in question has, of his own accord, seen a film, become inspired for better or worse, and has written and posted a review.

2)      One of the other douchebag editors has decided to get cute and offer an “assignment”; this entails challenging someone directly with a “suggestion” for a film to be watched and reviewed. In this case, “suggestion” is misleading, as the request cannot be denied. I suppose that we might think of changing the term “assignment” to “punishment” at best, and perhaps “The filmic equivalent of the Bataan Death March” more realistically. I might also suggest changing the term “editor” to “asshole” when referring to the requestor, and I’m also seriously considering changing my cell number and e-mail address to prevent any further assignments from finding me in the first place.

 

Anyway, this review turns out to be a double assignment for me; Postie gave me the film⁽¹⁾ , and Melvin followed his challenge to me to review Transporter 2 by challenging me to try to post a positive review of this film⁽²⁾. Revenge is sweet, gentlemen. Just sayin’.

 

...

 

 

Moving on, I’d first like you to think back to your youth. (Unless you’re still a youth, in which case, bear with me.) I would bet there are a few things in your formulative years that you thought were absolutely amazing at the time, and in revisiting later in life, were absolutely mortified by. The best example I can think of in my life is the album As Nasty As They Wanna Be by The 2 Live Crew. Take a minute to Google the track listing on this one if you aren’t familiar, and you’ll notice a predominant theme; if you’re brave, check out a few MP3s. 

 

We’ll wait.

 

…

 

Man, did I think that album was awesome in middle school. Looking back now, not so much. I had it on my IPod for about 10 minutes, and as soon as “Put Her In The Buck” came on, I was like Michael Bolton in Office Space, diving for the volume in my car and hoping no one nearby heard it. 

 

This movie is much like that. Maybe if you’re 8 years old (and a Jeff Foxworthy fan), you’ll laugh non-stop all the way through, and go to school the next day to tell your friends how awesome it was, and then not get picked until last for dodgeball at recess. Anyone old enough to know better should react like a reasonable person should, which is to say they should be absolutely mortified to be caught watching it. At some point, there is a balance that needs to be reached between actual movie substance and scatological humor. I personally feel that line to exist somewhere in the realm of ‘No fart jokes, please!’ Others seem have a more liberal palate, such as writers Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer⁽³⁾ (and the entire list of producers…no getting off the hook for you!) who seem to think a virtual carpet-bombing of scenes involving taking a dump per minute to be a more appropriate level of saturation. In fact, here’s the new tagline for the film:

 

Larry The Cable Guy: Health Inspector – Turds!

 

Anyway, moving on with the review.

As the film opens, we are introduced immediately to Larry. And by Larry, I mean Larry’s ass-crack. (For the record, I don’t walk out of movies as a rule, but if I had gone to see this in the theatre and was greeted by that shot, I’d be knocking over the elderly if it would have meant I was out of the theater a second faster.) 

 

Over the course of the film, we are gradually shown more details that paint the portrait of Larry; he is a man of humble means, but he clearly enjoys the finer things in life; peeing in the shower, Ted Nugent, and pro wrestling. (Pardon me…”Wrasslin’”) He has a discerning palate. (Preferences include Moon-Pies and Pabst Blue Ribbon) He takes care of his women, bringing them on fancy dates (his favorite choice of location is the 24-hour buffet at the bus station) and showering them with fine wine (Boone's Farm!).

 

We also quickly learn quite a bit about the writers as well. Clearly, the brainstorming sessions for the script went something along these lines:

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not joking when I say that this movie makes a joke at the expense of everyone. No one is missed:

 

-Mentally handicapped jokes. Larry’s neighbor, Donnie, is mentally retarded and spends his days throwing a soccer ball at whatever hard surface is nearby; the rebounding ball typically hits him full in the face or in the nuts. Hilarity ensues. Or something.

 

-Ethnic Jokes. At an Indian restaurant, Larry asks the owner to “make him one of those head-wrappy towel things.” His buddy, Big Shug, is big, black, and loves to make fried chicken and waffles! 

 

-Gay jokes. Larry keeps telling his boss that he should be headed off to a gay parade, or gay stripclub, or gay bath-house for no explicable reason.

 

-Handicap jokes. One of Larry’s co-workers, Jack Dabbs, is wheelchair-bound. Larry never misses a chance to rub it in. (Jack: “I’m not a miracle worker, Larry.” Larry: “Of course you ain’t! If you was you’d a got up outta that chair and kicked my ass weeks ago!”)

It keeps going on like this for the entire length of the movie. Mercifully, these topics of ridicule are mixed in among the liberal helpings of fart, defecation, vomit, testicle, masturbation, and erection jokes. Kind of softens the blow. Or not.

 

 

Continuing on with the film, Larry is revealed to be a very competent health inspector, despite his slovenly nature and unprofessional attitude. We also get a glimpse into the depths of his psyche when we see that Larry is quick to go after unrepentant offenders of the health code (such as the cockroach-infested greasy-spoon diner helmed by some asshole who insults old women and drops cigarette butts into the food), but will let slide the good people who mean well and are trying to make a living. (For some unknown reason, these people are all of ethnic backgrounds.)   Despite his Robin Hood-esque nature, Larry’s boss Biff Tannen Bart Tatlock still finds Larry to be a terrible person and a worse employee, and decides to saddle him with a straight-laced, androgenous partner named Amy Butlin to try to spy on Larry’s exploits in order to dig up enough dirt to have him fired. At this point, I realize two things - first, that the writers are so ham-fisted in their attempts to nail home the “Good guys win/bad guys lose” theme that blood is starting to drip from my ears, and second, that when Tatlock introduces Larry’s partner to him and Larry responds with “Heh…Butlin.”, I actually snickered.

 

With that, I stop the DVD and call my doctor to schedule a CT scan and/or frontal lobotomy.

 

 

 

My doctor having cleared me of any permanent brain damage, I return to the DVD. We’ve now been introduced to Cypher Ralph Cifaretto Mayor M.T. Gunn (no clue), played with Oscar-worthy conviction (I’m lying) by Joe Pantoliano. I very quickly find myself wishing that this character will continue in the proud tradition of Joey Pants’ previous roles and be off-ed quickly. I’m apparently not that lucky. Further hijinx ensue as Larry continues to refer to Butlin as a man and attempts to score a date with Jane, who has issues with holding a job down (and also looking at the camera here and there), and who lives with her mother (who apparently is the result of and unholy union between Andrew Dice Clay and the demon-woman trapped in the basement in Evil Dead.)

 

There’s also some totally transparent plot device that springs up about some sort of upcoming city-wide restaurant challenge; apparently, someone is poisoning diners at all of the high-end establishments in the city in an attempt to ruin the chances of these restaraunts winning the event, and now it’s up to Larry and Butlin to figure out who would do such a thing, providing ample opportunity for more toilet jokes and mentally-retarded neighbor jokes and redneck humor and hey, there’s another shot of Larry’s ass-crack, and suddenly I’ve gone blind in my left eye. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re in the home stretch. After a visit to the emergency room and being prescribed some very strong meds, I come back to the film. Somewhere along the way, Larry and Butlin accuse Mayor Sy Swerdlow of being the culprit of the whole poisoning thing, which of course ends up being false, providing Tatlock the fuel he needs to fire Larry. Larry descends into a montage of self-destructive behavior and depression that falls absolutely flat on its face due to the fact that all of the things Larry does in said montage are no different than what he would normally do before he was fired and depressed. Fortunately, Jane and Butlin (and probably Jane’s mom, and maybe Big Shug and who the hell knows who else) have taken it upon themselves to crack the case in Larry’s absence by somehow tricking Mayor McCheese into revealing a tryst with himself and Lilly Micelli, the totally obvious evil restaurant owner. Somehow, Larry and company make the huge leap to draw the conclusion that this means Lilly is clearly the one behind the whole poisoning thing. (No clue. It doesn’t even make sense to me after seeing the film and then writing this review.) 

 

Mercifully, we arrive at the end of the film, where the city-wide cook off challenge is being mysteriously filmed as an episode of Top Chef. (I must be slightly feverish, as I have this fantasy of The Chairman from Iron Chef America coming out and saying, “Today’s secret ingredient is….TURDS!” while pulling the cover off of a table covered with toilets.) 

 

Among other things, there is an inexplicable Jerry Mathers showing. (I guess this is in the vein of the recent ‘Random Celeb-As-Judge-In-Final-Showdown’, but Beaver Cleaver is no Chuck Norris) Larry shows up and sneaks into the ladies’ room to implicate Lilly as the conspirator by recording her in the next stall, but sadly gives himself away by (no surprises here) farting. He is then forced to fight Lilly’s strange homunculus-like sister, culminating with him getting a swirly, spitting out a mouthful of shit, and knocking out the ugly sister. In a strange nod to symmetry, Butlin confronts and kicks the shit out of Lilly, who is arrested in a very anti-climactic fashion, along with Jack Dabbs, who is somehow implicated as well, and promptly  incapacitated by a soccer ball in the testicles by the retarded neighbor, who somehow managed to find his way to the show's set. Larry gets his job back, Butlin gets a promotion, Tatlock gets punched in the throat, there are some parting fart jokes for good measure, and Larry breaks the fourth wall in order to deliver his trademark “Git ‘Er Done!” line, and the movie is mercifully done.   

 

And thank God for that. I’m starting to think Postie got off easy with The Hottie And The Nottie in comparison. It’s also clear that I completely failed Melvin’s challenge here, but I simply cannot in good faith paint this movie in a positive light. After all, you can’t (wait for it…) polish a turd.

 

Rating: On a scale of one to ten, I give Larry The Cable Guy: Health Inspector a negative 300 cut-off flannel shirts.

(1)   Glad you enjoyed The Hottie And The Nottie, dick.

 

(2)   Good luck with In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, fucker. 

      

(3) Highbrow humor to these two apparently involves naming a French restaurant in the film “Les Deux Coquilles.” Now, I know what they’re going for here, but unless my French is really rusty, I’m pretty sure coquilles translates into shells, and not the anatomy reference they’re going for. I guess that there are two possibilities here; either I’m missing something completely, or they’re after a Beavis & Butthead-ian reaction of “Heh…he said cock.” Either way, I’m ashamed that I’ve invested this much time trying to dissect anything related to this film. What a sad existence I lead.