Witless Protection

I counted 6 fart jokes (unless one squeaked by undetected), and as you'd expect they were mostly juvenile and awkward except one--the airport security gag--which was funny enough to warrant a hearty LOL out of me. And I think that sums the movie up pretty accurately: most of the humor is predictable and offensive, but hey, 1 out of 6 zingers might work for you.

The plot of "Witless Protection" isn't half bad. It's about a redneck ne'er-do-well, Larry, who makes a colossally stupid guess that he sees a crime in progress, and his misguided righteous redneck mentality prompts him to get tangled up in a big mess trying to protect a reluctant damsel in distress who doesn't want anything to do with him. Larry's bumbling stupidity is matched only by his surprisingly keen instincts, and as things unfold, you realize maybe Larry isn't as dumb as he looks.

A few farts later, you realize that yeah, he IS as dumb as he looks. But no matter, the story moves along keeping us interested enough, and as I said, you've got a 1 in 6 probability of being surprised with a really funny gag.

The comedy is straightforward redneck humor, meaning it's a mix of self-deprecating stupidity, gross-out pride, overhanging gut scenes and low key racist humor. By 'low key racist' I mean jokes sort of like Archie Bunker where we are supposed to laugh at how ignorant he is.

But let's take a paragraph to talk about that real quick. Ignorant/racist humor only works when there's an intelligent character in the mix to balance things out. An excellent example would be Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" which has so many racist characters you'd think the KKK were handing out free torches, BUT Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little put them in their place with superior intelligence so we, the audience, never feel awkward laughing at the gags.

But here in "Witless Protection" there's not really an intelligent character to deliver the punchline, so some of the self-deprecating racist jokes remain open ended. An example is when Larry goes to a motel that's operated by an Indian man (I'm guessing from the horribly contrived accent), and Larry proceeds to unleash a barrage of insults such as "diaper head" and whatnot. We, the audience, are waiting for the punchline... like maybe the Indian guy turns out to be a Harvard graduate who puts Larry in his place. But no, the scene just sort of ends. Big fail there, writers: you may want to brush up on your Mel Brooks before taking a crack at another script.

Another fail worth noting is that, despite the DVD cover, posters and promos heavily featuring Jenny McCarthy, she only appears in 3 or 4 scenes.

So overall, this flick wasn't horrible, but it certainly wasn't great. Lots of missed opportunities. But 1 in 6 farts hit the mark.

If you are a fan of the redneck then you will love this movie. Larry the cable guy plays the ultimate country, hick deputy. First he has a hot girlfriend, played by Jenny Mccarthy, which makes you wonder how he could land a girl like her, but that's before she starts talking. She loves all his critters too. Larry sees this hot blond, Madeleine, come in with several suits in a black SUV. His first thought is she's been kidnapped, so he kidnaps her. They get chased by the FBI all the way up to Chicago. Madeleine is a witness. Larry thinks the FBI guys with her are corrupt. He basically gets all these ideas from watching TV shows like cops. And Madedleine has some sort of key and they are looking for a computer disk. It was sort of confusing.

Basically, if you watch this, forget about the plot because the movie is all about the redneck jokes. While I didn't find it LOL, it was still amusing. Better than a lot of comedies.

FINAL VERDICT: If you like " you might be a redneck if"jokes, then this movie is right up your alley. If you don't like hill billy's then, I say skip this film.

I decided to watch this movie despite all of the bad reviews. It's a good thing I saw one review that said otherwise. I agree with that one single review out of all the reviews. It is definitely not a bad movie at all. I was laughing a lot while watching this movie and that doesn't happen to often with me. I've watched movies with high ratings only to feel like my time was stolen from me. So don't go by all the negative reviews that you see. I am not one of those that enjoy slapstick comedies much but this one has a thumbs up from me. Larry the Cable Guy was great in this movie. Although it was not believable (I watch movies to escape from reality) it was a humdinger.

This is one of those slight-of-hand smart comedies, which explains why its target audience hated it so much. A bit too intellectual for them.

A lot of the stuff involves dumb gags, silly (and easily seen over-the-top) stereotypes, and the acting is not going to win any awards for comedy or otherwise. But it is all wound up into an enjoyable story and directed well enough that even Eric Roberts is able to handle his role. It also has enough complexity and subtlety to keep it interesting (provided you're able to make it through the first 10 minutes, which really is bad, but does still tie into the story).

Maybe the problem is that the target audience can't handle the memory required to get past the first 10 minutes.

Larry the Cable Guy (Daniel Lawrence Whitney) is an excruciatingly funny stand-up comedian. He knows how to hit a mark. It's obvious he's disciplined enough to fulfill all the requirements of doing a workmanlike job in front of a camera.

Yet.

Doing a movie with this level of scripted awfulness is a witless and heartless crime. Why is stupid acceptable? Why waste "Larry?"

Because there are enough lunkheads who will pay from seven to ten bucks to see this trash in a theatre (we thought we'd take a chance on it, using a Netflix gift membership, so it wouldn't cost us anything).

Witless was the perfect adjective.

And no amount of Jenny McCarthy's skin could make this movie any better.