Freddy Got Fingered

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The ancient Hebrews used to send out a goat into the wilderness, hoping it would take all their sins off with it. Modern Hollywood continues the practice every year with the Razzies, awards handed out to films which supposedly stink but which are in fact often not significantly more terrible than many others.

In fact Razzies are often awarded to films which tried hard and failed, rather than to films which cynically set out to be terrible, in the hope of turning a buck, so maybe there’s some honour in getting one. In 2012, was Kristen Stewart really deserving of hers, for Snow White and the Huntsman and the last of the Twilight films? And Halle Berry’s, for Catwoman in 2004, was more a case of her being given an award for poor judgment – it’s a bad film – rather than being bad at the acting thing.

In 2001, that year’s scapegoat was Tom Green who, it seems to have been decided, had gotten above himself. The American comedian had even been the one-time husband of Drew Barrymore. That’s not to say that Green’s film is good exactly. It’s terrible in fact. But it is his film – he wrote, directed and stars.

So what is FGF about? Not much. A 28-year-old slacker called Gord (Tom Green) goes back to live with his parents (Rip Torn and Julie Hagerty), having made a bit of a mess of his life. There he take up with a girl who can’t use her legs but gets a sexual kick (if that’s the word) if someone beats them with a stick.

To keep things lively, Gord tells a shrink that his father is abusing his brother, Freddy. Freddy is 25, a fact Gord doesn’t tell the psychiatrist. Within a short time Gord has a lot more of the family home to himself.

But these two snippets from the plot are already suggesting far too strongly that the film has a shape. It doesn’t, or it only has enough to give Green a frame on which to drape a mush of gross-out gags that did at the time quite convincingly put the Farrelly brothers in their place.

Swinging a new-born baby around by the umbilical cord, copping a faceful of elephant jizz, eviscerating a moose and wearing the skin, for example. One of the Razzies Green won was for Worst Screen Couple, the nomination reading “Tom Green… and any animal he abuses.”

The film also won Worst Actor, Worst Director, Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay and was nominated for Worst Supporting Actor (Rip Torn) and Worst Supporting Actress (Drew Barrymore and Julie Hagerty).

That, surely, piques the interest?


Freddy Got Fingered – at Amazon

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© Steve Morrissey 2013


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