The Jerky Boys

Firstly I'm a huge 'Jerky Boy's' fan and their hilarious recordings (both on tape and CD), are historical; featuring the finest ever phone pranks. A film like this can never work because all of the once spontaneous jokes are staged, thus loses the whole point. The story is pretty weak to but on the plus side you do get to see them in person and contains some truly brilliant bands on the soundtrack ('Superchunk', 'House of Pain' and 'Helmet' etc). Also with the great acting talents of Alan Arkin but still falling way short of the real thing.

The Jerky Boys first audio tape was a huge success, and I enjoyed many hours of laughs from it. The second audio tape wasn't as funny, but still had some great jokes, and I never listened to any more after that. But I saw the movie on video, and it couldn't measure up. Just the same jokes from the first tape, only not quite as funny. And the token plot wouldve been better off just showing them make the calls. Alan Arkin as a mafioso was an amusing touch, following his psychiatrist from Grosse Point Blank. Everyone I know who saw this film thought it was mediocre, but the ones who never heard the tapes before thought it was somewhat funny, while fans of the Jerky Boys expected a whole lot more. Now Johnny and Kamal's 15 minutes of fame together are up, but at least they had a good run.

"The Jerky Boys" is mostly an excuse to be silly. The plot is that slackers Johnny and Kamal spend their lives making prank phone calls and inadvertently call a mob boss (Alan Arkin), pretending to be another mafioso, thereby starting a wacky chain of events. I actually thought that the best parts were the pranks. Still, the flick's an overall fun romp. Far from the funniest movie ever, but OK for a viewing. As it was, I saw this movie right after I first learned of Alan Arkin by seeing "Catch-22", so this was a real surprise. And now he's won an Oscar!

Anyway, pretty funny. Also starring William Hickey (the mob boss in "Prizzi's Honor" and the patriarch in "Mouse Hunt").

This movie will go down in history as an all time classic. I place it in the realms of Cheech and Chong and the Blues Brothers. Not many Guys could pull off making crank calls into a Big-screen comedy. Fast paced action and wacky impressions make this movie a winner. Even though it was a box office flop I bet video rentals more than made up for poor ticket sales. This is a stay home, 12 pack type of flick.

Yeah, this is a moronic movie. For those who haven't heard the boys' prank calls (which I find funny, and even sometimes clever), their jokes will fall pretty flat. They just don't work on-screen. And for those of us who HAVE heard their old stuff, the movie serves as a rehash and seems "old hat." The only reason I rented this was to get a look at the faces behind the voices--doesn't Johnny B. look like a chubby Sean Astin with a mullet-like hairdo? Stick to their audio-only work.