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Freddy Got Fingered |
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ONLINE EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS FILM FEATURES GRAPHIC VIOLENCE AND LEWD SEXUAL CONTENT. THIS REVIEW REFERENCES THAT CONTENT AND IS NOT APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN.
As a media analyst, exposure to the
underbelly of what sometimes passes for
entertainment comes with the territory. But
teen icon and MTV comedian Tom Green has
created a new underbelly for the underbelly.
Nothing about his new ultra-gross-out
flick, Freddy Got Fingered, warrants
even a wan smile, much less a laugh. I
walked out of the theater when it was over
feeling physically drained to the point of
illness. "I don't think there's anything in this
movie that is mean," Green told newspapers. I
beg to differ. There’s nothing in this movie that
isn’t mean.
Am I being a bit too narrow-minded?
Judgmental even? A host of mainstream
critics don’t think so—and most of them are
not known for their "conservative" bents.
"Freddy Got Fingered is the worst
movie ever made," wrote Warren Epstein for
the Colorado Springs Gazette. "Only my
strong desire to inform the public kept me
from walking out of this horribly offensive
festival of the grotesque." The Denver
Post’s Steven Rosen put it this way: "Tom
Green has made a movie so unrelentingly
gross, disgusting and imbecilic that one
mourns for the state of humanity while
watching it." Elsewhere, Roger Ebert blasts
the film, calling it a "vomitorium consisting of
93 minutes of Tom Green doing things that a
geek in a carnival sideshow would turn down."
Lou Lumenick of the New York Post
laments, "I'm not easily offended, but
[Freddy’s] nonstop assault of crude and
sub-cretinous humor moved me to
annoyance." Enough said.
It’s way too kind to call it a plot, but the
story line used to connect the twisted
gross-out antics of Tom Green’s Freddy
Got Fingered go like this: Gord is an
animator. His dad thinks he’s a slacker and
pressures him to find a job. So Gord goes to
Hollywood to land a job. He fails. He returns
home. Eventually, he tries again and lands a
big contract. Brilliant, isn’t it?
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positive elements: None
whatsoever.
•
sexual content: Most of
Freddy’s scenes are so far off the
charts they can’t even be referenced here.
Bestial acts of masturbation. Jokes about
sodomy. Incest. Child abuse. Innumerable
sexual remarks and gestures. Searing
debauchery and depravity. Gord’s girlfriend,
Betty, aggressively seeks to perform fellatio on
Gord in two scenes (and does so offscreen on
their first "date"). Shaquille O’Neal plays
himself as a philandering home wrecker who
sleeps with Gord’s mother. Gord encourages
his mom to leave her no-good husband and
have sex with star athletes. Gord also rubs his
crotch against the pants of a man he doesn’t
know.
•
violent content: As with its sexual
content, much of Freddy’s violent
content is so bizarre and repugnant the words
needed to describe it cannot be printed here.
Sexualized violence (inexplicably presented for
laughs) takes center stage in Gord and Betty’s
relationship. It’s excused in the movie
because Betty, who is confined to a
wheelchair, becomes aroused when Gord
repeatedly canes her across the legs. Gord’s
dad angrily pushes a woman into some
plastic barrels. He then pushes his son. Gord
slices into a dead moose (entrails ooze out of
the carcass) and dons the bloody skin. He’s
then run down by a semi (he’s not hurt). He
licks an open, bloody wound on a friend’s leg.
When a Hollywood mogul shows no interest
in his work, Gord puts a gun into his own
mouth threatening suicide. The would-be
boss gives Gord this advice: "If it doesn’t work
out then blow your brains out." Jim spanks his
adult son. A boy collides with a car door
and comes up bleeding. Later, he gets
beaned by a baseball.
•
crude or profane language: Between
60 and 70 f-words and about 20 s-words are
only the beginning. Freddy doesn’t
merely contain crudities, it is
fundamentally crude. It’s especially
disturbing to hear a father and son angrily
cuss each other out as if that were perfectly
normal and expected. Mom, meanwhile,
doesn’t even blink an eye at the pair’s
language. To top it all off, there’s at least 15
abuses of the Lord’s name.
•
drug and alcohol content: Whisky,
wine and beer flow. Drunkenness gets played
for laughs. Gord smokes a cigarette.
•
other negative elements: Freddy
Got Fingered’s most serious perversion is
its mocking references to child molestation.
Gord accuses his father of abusing his
brother Freddy (hence the film’s disturbing
title). His accusations prove groundless, but
the "comedic" damage is done. Freddy, age
25, gets sent to the Institute for Sexually
Molested Children, which is full of absurdly
happy, carefree kids. And then there’s the
dreadful birthing scene. Blood drips down his
face as Gord chews through a newborn’s
umbilical cord. Even worse, he then whips the
baby around by the cord, soaking everyone in
the room with blood.
•
conclusion: No one said a practical
joke can’t be funny. But absolutely nothing
in this movie is either practical or a joke.
It’s bitter, gross, mean-spirited and
disgusting. How this movie ever got made is
beyond me. How it got an R rating from the
MPAA is even more of a mystery.
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