Larry the Cable Guy has a stand-up’s timing and a non-Southerner’s grasp of what makes the Southern-fried redneck – his attitudes, attire and accent – hilarious.
The native Nebraskan makes lines like “She wuz so ugly she could trick’r treat over the telephone” sing.
His movie, slipped into theaters without previews, has some of what makes Larry funny in it. But not nearly enough.
“Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector” sets up the redneck’s redneck as a hamhocked, ham-armed and pig-bellied good ol’ boy who keeps diners safe in an unnamed Southern city.
Larry, a.k.a. Sanford, Fla.’s, Dan Whitney, drives his mudder pick’em-up truck, the one covered in American flag, gun-nut and Hooters bumper stickers, lets his jeans ride too low, wears his sleeveless flannel shirts and lets loose with his trademark redneck riffs as he tries to solve a series of food poisonings leading up to a citywide “cook-off.” His exclamations are NASCAR-ready.
“Good Lord, Jesus, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.!” He insults the woman he thinks is a man (character actress Iris Bahr, pretty funny) that his hyperventilating boss (Thomas Wilson, “Biff” in the “Back to the Future” movies) saddles him with. He makes time with the pretty thing he somehow lures into his romantic clutches (Megyn Price).
“I feel so comfortable with you,” she purrs.
“Other’n my underbritches creepin’ up on me,” he coos back, “I feel purty comfortable too!” And he breaks wind, pretty much constantly. Funny, the first time it happens in a four-star restaurant. After that, not so much.
Those who find Larry offensive (comic Steve Hofstetter named his new CD “Cure for the Cable Guy”) won’t have much to vent about here, other than “cripple” jokes and little tweaks of homophobia. Hey, it’s the character, not the actor! And Larry is a hoot, in moments, here and there, long before the slapdash finale.
Team Cable Guy has made a junky, throwaway comedy that will almost certainly appeal to his fans, for at least the first half-hour. Then it runs out of jokes.
You can tell a bad script when there are talented supporting players who can’t manage to be funny in it. Joe Pantoliano (as the mayor) and Joanna Cassidy know comedy. They have nothing to do here.
A good comic lands the laughs. A good comic actor knows to share those laughs with the cast, because the movie’s deader’n roadkill without their support.
And toilet gags? Giggle if you must, but that’s the lowest of low comedy. You might be a redneck if … you still find these jokes a hoot. Or you might be a 5-year-old.
* | “Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector”
PG-13 for language, crude humor and sexual content|1 hour, 29 minutes|COMEDY|Directed by Trent Cooper; starring Dan Whitney, Joanna Cassidy, Joe Pantoliano|At area theaters.
