Mutant Reviewers from Hell do
"I'm the backwards man, the backwards man, I can run back as fast as you can."

2001 R / Comedy Directed by: Tom Green Starring: Tom Green, Rip Torn, Marisa Coughlan

Tagline

This time you can't change the channel.

Summary Capsule

Well... there... dude, it's just GROSS.

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Amazon.com: DVD | Amazon.com: Soundtrack

Justin's Rating: *sobbing softly into my pillow each night*
Justin's Review: Excuse me while I whip this out… my bad movie résumé, that is. When it comes to so-bad-it-physically-hurts movies, I have seen and reviewed Battlefield Earth, Dungeons & Dragons, all of the animated Lord of the Rings flicks, the atrocious Whipped, the abominable Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, the fingers-in-my-eye-sockets Showgirls, and — lest we forget — the hell-bound The Doom Generation. I'm not boasting here; there is a point to this.

"Everyone in conjunction with making this movie should be arrested and jailed because of it. I'm dead serious."

So when I tell you that it took three attempts to make it through Freddy Got Fingered - the first two times I shut off the television in pure disgust - it should bear some weight with you. Even the third time, in the sight of God and my wife, I was still squirming on the couch, mewling at the terrible horror of the images, and near crying in relief when it was finally over. Please, PLEASE take it from me: you should never be curious about exactly how bad Freddy is, but instead you should bring every copy you find to a specially prepared bonfire and roast it to save others' lives.

It's my personal theory that as quickly as MTV makes cultural icons, they tend to self-destruct soon after. Tom Green is the tarnished example of this, a terribly unfunny "actor" who starred in his own show wherein he paraded around like a complete buffoon and was a massive jerk to people, filmed it, and tried to get us laughing as if we were on his side for the whole thing. Green used his mild success to get - admittedly - amusing bit parts in Charlie's Angels and Road Trip.

Then, he wrote, directed and starred in his first major film: Freddy Got Fingered.

It's as if he deliberately dug his grave by making the most annoying, crude and cruel movie he could imagine, just to tank his career forever. Hey, it worked. The best thing we can say is that after this fiasco, no Hollywood studio will ever give Green such autonomy again in his life. If it were up to me, this freakish beanstalk would be exiled to wherever John Travolta spends his days now. Scientology Hell, no doubt.

I know that you're sitting there reading these dire warnings with a sort of piqued interest in seeing a movie that I pronounce bad. Don't. Such feelings are to be expected, but don't assume that this is anywhere near a So Bad It's Unintentionally Hilarious type of film. If the badness of the movie were merely limited to Tom Green's shrill antics and stupid brand of comedic acting, I'd be the first to dare you to partake. As it is, Freddy couples that badness with so many revolting factors that it can't fail but bring bile up in your throat by minute 12. I'm actually so adamant that you DON'T SEE THIS that the sole reason I put myself through this viewing was to catalog what, exactly, made this movie so crass, and present it here in hopes that it'll sate your curiosity and you'll move the heck on with your life.

So here goes. I make none of this up, and if anything understate how vile some of these scenes are (sorry if this sounds like a CAP summary… unintentional, I assure you). In Freddy Got Fingered, there is:

• An unhealthy fixation for animal genetalia. Gord (Green) yanks on a horse's penis, watches two horses copulate, and masturbates an elephant's penis so that it blasts his father with a load of stuff we'd really not like to talk about.

• Passing jokes that are in horribly bad taste. To meet a guy, Gord tells his secretary that the guy's wife just died.

• For little reason, Gord finds a deer dead on the side of the road, cuts it open with a knife (hello intestines) and wears the bloody carcass while prancing about.

• Gord's friend falls and causes a compound fracture in his leg, which the movie shows in a sickening close-up, a skateboard is thrown on the wound, and then Gord sucks and licks the bloody bone. Have you hit the "back" button on your browser yet?

• A running gag involving a young boy getting really hurt. Gord hits a kid with his car, a wine bottle smacks the kid in the face, the kid gets hit in the mouth with a baseball, and the kid runs into spinning propeller blades - all portrayed with lots of blood and realistic screaming.

• So much profanity (the F-word is used every second sentence) that it must've been purchased as a wholesale clearance lot.

• Gord forcibly delivers a baby at the hospital, cuts the umbilical cord with his teeth, swings the baby around by the severed cord (splattering blood everywhere), and then tapes the cord to his own belly.

• Jokes aimed at the handicapped. Gord's girlfriend is wheelchair-bound, called a lot of cruel names, and asks Gord to beat her legs hard with a stick to sexually please her.

• At one point, Gord abruptly tells his mom to have sex with strangers in graphic detail. She later ends up in bed with Shaq. Seriously.

• A decision to veer abominably into the land of child molestation and try to play it off as a joke. This is the single biggest travesty in this already terrible movie: Gord falsely accuses his father of "fingering" his younger brother Freddy, which starts a chain of events that all seem to revolve around how apparently funny molestation charges are. Freddy ends up in "The Institute For Sexually Molested Children", which is as unfunny and damning as you might envision. Listen, at the top of the list of Things That Are Never Funny To Joke About, in my book, are rape and child abuse. Everyone in conjunction with making this movie should be arrested and jailed because of it. I'm dead serious.

• We see Rip Torn's naked buttocks. And then Rip Torn (sarcastically, but graphically) tells Gord to have sex with him. Over and over.

So. Traumatized for life, aren't you? And that's just from reading the list, not suffering through this movie!

I would also like to list some of the actors that shamefully accepted parts in this movie and no doubt pretend like crazy they were never associated with FGF: Rip Torn, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Harland Williams, Anthony Michael Hall, Julie Hagerty, Drew Barrymore, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Shaquille O'Neal.

Rip Torn... WHYYYYYY? Tom Green meets his intellectual equal This is the sort of thing you have in a dream if you have a very high fever

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• Freddy is watching a medical show on TV. The show is actually The Tom Green Cancer Special.
• When Betty gives Gordy her phone number, she writes down 867-5309 (from the Tommy Tutone song.)

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

There are outtakes, but seriously? I didn't even make it to the end credits.

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

When originally rated NC-17 by the MPAA, Tom Green replied, "That's like, porn - with murder."

Tom Green performed most of his own stunts, including the skate boarding scenes and the house scene. The studio was against him doing any of the stunts because if anything happened to him, they'd lose the lead actor and director.

This film won five Razzies, including worst picture, worst actor and worst director. Tom Green showed up to the ceremony to pick up his awards.

Groovy Quotes

Gord: [playing the sausage organ] Daddy, would you like some sausage? Daddy, would you like some sausage?

Gord: You can't hurt me, not with my cheese helmet!

Gord: [Dressed in his father's suit, back to front] I'm the backwards man, the backwards man, I can run back as fast as you can.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Hell