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Film
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Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
It opens with a great one-two-three punch line montage that has the audience giggling. Then, it plunges penis-first into the Amsterdam gutter.
Friday, August 12, 2005
By Richard Horgan
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Columbia Pictures
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Comedy duo Griffin, Schneider
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Not since Me and Him, the 1989 German production in which the voice of Mark Linn-Baker suddenly animates the penis of Griffin Dunne’s character Bert Uttanzi, has a comedy so continentally and gleefully embraced the male anatomy. Rob Schneider’s latest cinematic pastiche, much like Paul Provenza’s current doc The Aristocrats, offers a hundred variations of every stand-up comedian’s go-to favorite: the dick joke.
This Deuce is shameless, relentless, tasteless and way raunchier than its 1999 predecessor; but about the time the sixth or seventh gag touching on the relative girth of the Asian male anatomy rolls around, your jaw will either be sore from guffawing or clenching your teeth. If you’re a hardcore fan of The Howard Stern Show, where both Schneider and co-star Eddie Griffin held court separately this week, you will worship at the altar of this film’s various low-rent attempts to outdo the hair gel scene in There’s Something About Mary. Much like the two guys sitting next to me, who couldn’t stop exclaiming how hilarious it all was.
On the other hand, if the idea of a bad dream Saturday Night Live flashback hosted by Schneider and featuring drop-ins from Norm McDonald, Fred Armisen and Adam Sandler leaves you indifferent, then do yourself a favor and wait for the unrated, uncut, and no doubt uncircumcised DVD.
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Columbia Pictures
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Mike Bigelow: novice director
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All things being relative, Rob Schneider is really no worse an actor than Jerry Seinfeld, and his latest, The Dukes of Holland, is not much more offensive than last week’s number one movie at the box office. So why are most critics so hard on him, with for example Roger Ebert once proclaiming that the best thing about a Schneider send-up was that the film broke during the screening he attended?
It’s a combination of things. First off, Schneider has a listless kind of energy on screen. There’s no pep in his step. Off screen, as you may have surmised from his recent appearance on Donnie Deutsch’s The Big Idea and the like, it’s the exact opposite. In interviews, he’s lively, funny and engaging. So his disappointing alter ego, albeit played deliberately for straight man laughs, just becomes for many scribes too irresistible a whipping boy target to resist.
Then there is of course the fact that Schneider, both foolishly and bravely, has declared war on those film critics who dare to question the integrity of his comedic art. Believe it or not, Schneider is one of the hardest working screen comics around. He spends months poring over 3-by-5 cards, plotting the jokes of his movies, and takes his craft very seriously.
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Columbia Pictures
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Newcomer Hanna Verboom
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But his mistake is calling his pieces of entertainment movies. If he squarely admitted that Deuce Bigalow is not a film and Rob Schneider is not an actor, and that what he does is nothing more than a sketch-like perpetuation of adolescence, he might win over a few more thumbs. By claiming with a straight face that he thinks of himself as a cinematic artiste, the San Francisco native does nothing more than remind you how much better someone like Steve Martin was as a simpleton comedian being The Jerk.
Finally, Schneider tends to stage his recurring gags in far too obvious a manner. Next to the dick joke, the repeat reference is as old a comedian stand-by as any. Done right, to the side, it can be genius; but when someone beats you over the head with the third, fourth and fifth variations of the same shtick, it’s just one more reminder that you’re in the presence of grate-ness. From the naked Weather Channel forecasters to the endless protests of Griffin's homophobic pimp, Schneider segues too often straight past subtlety.
In the end, beyond a telling end-credits caption relating to Norm McDonald, the only lasting artistic memory of Deuce’s European vacation will likely be the fact that it marks the English-language debut of model Hanna Verboom. An Elite discovery in 2003 and current host of Holland’s Tops of the Pops TV program, this 22-year-old Belgian-born stunner is off and running after debuting in the 2004 Dutch film Snowfever.
If she plays her cards right, who knows, she might one day get the chance to co-star in a James Bond film, just like the guy who - somewhat inexplicably - plays her father here (Jeroen Krabbé, The Living Daylights).
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