Jolly Dirty Joe. Review on Joe Dirt Movie

They aired this movie a few days back on one of the movie channels (I think HBO). They had advertised it as a movie with Adam Sandler as an executive producer. Now that name meant something. I had seen Happy Gilmore and Water Boy. Not to mention Mr. Deeds Goes To Town. So I took this one to be another loser-can-be-a-winner-despite-being-loser movie. Guess what? I was right.

What's It 'bout?

Now there has been no dearth such movies. This one is no different. The loser gets the girl in the end. But the story is not about the eternal under-achiever fighting against his identity, but a zestful man who never quits.

The Story

The movie deals with a radio interview of Joe Dirt, a janitor at the radio station. Dennis Miller, the host thinks Joe is a classic example of an American under-achiever, a countryside bumpkin with a story of a loser. He wants to raise laughs among his audience with Joe Dirt's sorry tale of life. Joe is a bumpkin all right, but he never quits. He tells the story of his life about how he was lost in the Grand Canyon on a family trip; how he grew up with various foster parents; his funny and often back-firing pranks and deeds (he mistakes a giant shit-ball dropped from airplanes to be a meteorite and a septic tank to be an atomic bomb etc). The audience is in splits. He further recalls how he comes to Silver Town and meets Brandi a hot and ravishing beauty with a golden heart and how he finds her too hot to go beyond friendship. The audience declares him a LOSER for this. But Joe is unfazed and goes on to recall his strange and fantastic journey across America in search of his family- his mission of life.

Growing up on his own and educating himself on life, Joe who has been forced with a surname Dirt is full of zest and takes on his life with his mission. He is a sorry figure with his 70's hairstyle, scrawny body and country ways and speech. But he manages to win some strange friends: a Red Indian selling fire crackers who wants to be a vet someday, an alligator farm owner, a mobster on the run under the Witness Protection Program, a girl who almost turns out to be his sister (fortunately she is not) after he has sex with her, a crazy cross dressing psycho who imprisons him in a pit as a slave (You gotta watch this! Absolutely hilarious) and many more.

The radio audience is slowly glued to the story that runs for three days now. The laughs are gone and the loser has people rooting for him. He recounts how he finds his parents’ house but then figures out that they had moved away long before. He then realizes that he always had a home at Silver Town with someone waiting (Brandi). Upon returning, he meets Robby, Brandi's jealous admirer who tells him that Brandi never liked him. Joe is shattered and goes to LA where he ends up at the radio station. The host who had laughed all along the story now calls Brandi to ask her why she broke Joe's heart. Brandi tells him that Joe's parents were long dead and she never wanted him to give up his hope and zest.

Joe is sad but does not quit. His strange story wins him thousands of fans and he is a celebrity. Books and magazines toast him and television makes him an icon. He takes on the status positively and starts to live the celebrity life with the same zest that he showed all along. During a Johnny Carson show, he gets a call from someone who claims to be his mother. Joe believes that his parents are alive, traces the call and ends up in a trailer park where his parents are. But then he realizes that his parents had actually abandoned him because they too thought him to be a misfit. They only wanted him back because he was a celebrity.

Joe's zest runs out and he contemplates suicide on a bridge with the media covering him. Brandi arrives, tells him that she always loved him, clears all misunderstanding and takes him home to Silver Town where he lives happily ever after with his friends he found in his journey.

The Message

That was a predictable end. But Joe Dirt displays a new misfit. The one that never quits. The one that thinks that his under-achievement is a personal opinion of others and not his. The one who finds his own purpose in life without requiring to know which way the world points at. The friends he wins were all losers, but they see his point and live the way they please. With zest. Joe Dirt is a rare example of integrity in a world of losers. He lives for what he believes and simply does not quit.

This movie is very much like all the others, but gives useful three words of advice through Joe Dirt: Zest Never Quit.

The Star

David Spade is the man who made this movie worthwhile to watch. He lives the country schmuck Joe Dirt literally, throughout the movie. I rate him greater as an actor and comedian than Adam Sandler. This movie belongs to him for portraying Joe Dirt in the only way possible.

The Star Ratings

David Spade: 2 stars

The Message: 1 Star

The Screenplay: 1 Star

The lovely soundtrack (a lot of Doobie Brothers'): 1 star.

A full five stars.