The Farrelly brothers certainly have managed to offend various people over the years with their brand of humour. This is taken to the extreme in the forthcoming The Ringer, which they’ve executive produced.
Essentially they’ve gone out on a limb to try to make it as hard possible to like a film – at least from the synopsis. Let me explain.
In The Ringer, Johnny Knoxville plays Steve, an office cubicle drone who wants to improve himself. His boss is willing to give him the chance, but also gives him the job of firing the nice janitor, Stavi. Steve feels sorry for him and offers him a job cutting the lawn for his apartment complex, with cash coming out of his own pocket. But a tragic lawnmower accident leaves Stavi minus three fingers and it becomes clear that as his employer Steve should have taken out medical insurance. Without this, he needs $28,000 to pay for surgery.
Meanwhile Steve’s crooked uncle, played by Brian Cox, needs even more money to get himself out of a gambling hole. Then he dreams up a quite brilliant scheme…
He’ll get Steve to act as though he’s mentally disabled, and get him to enter the Special Olympics in this guise. His uncle will bet against the Special Olympics superstar Johnny, and win lots of money. With his name as Jeffy Dahmor, Steve goes undercover against his better judgement.
What follows could be considered some of the most tasteless humour to ever be committed to celuloid, but it’s actually very good.
There’s no doubt that one of the worst things a human can do, is laugh at another because of a handicap they have (and have no control over), but this film, with it’s cast full of disabled actors, is not malicious, and like Steve/Jeffy we, as an audience, feel far less alienated than we might otherwise.
Needless to say, “Jeffy” falls in love with Lynn, a helper at the games and is left in an impossible position as a result.
I’ve got to be honest and say that I laughed my way through the entire film. I may go to hell as a result, but I honestly believe this to be a good film with a kind heart and good spirit. I’ll say right here and now that it’s going to get some very tough press and some people are going to need to come out batting on its side.
But then the Lars Von Trier Dogma film The Idiots had worse scenes, when the group went out and about on “outings”, “spazzing” when they met people who’d show them around factories or whatever. There was no redemption there.
Could this be the first half decent film Johnny Knoxville has made?
Completely unrelated to anything else, James Cromwell was in the lobby of the hotel where the screening of this film occurred today. At the time I couldn’t recall his name, so out came the mobile and a bit of surfing later revealed it. But then came the intriguing note that he’s soon to be seen as Prince Philip in a Stephen Frears film called The Queen. And I note that the Queen herself is played by Helen Mirren, giving her an unlikely 2005 double of playing both Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II!
But seeing James Cromwell doesn’t trump my best celebrity spot of the week – seeing Chris Morris in Soho. That beats seeing David Walliams (twice in one day), and June Sarpong. And that doesn’t even take into account, seeing Paul Weller and Eric Sykes at work (not together, obviously). I’ll stop there, because whenever I flick through it, I always despise those pages in Heat magazine that show celebs out and about being snapped in the street. Horrible.