Holy shit you guys. If I described what happens in this movie and didn’t tell you it’s a comedy (let alone a PG-rated “family” comedy) you might say “Oh, does Harmony Korine have a new one out?” Or maybe Lars Von Trier? This is a deeply, deeply fucked up movie...but right off the bat I noticed it was written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszweski...who went on to write Ed Wood, The People Vs. Larry Flynt, and that OJ Simpson mini-series from a few years back. So what the whaaa why what happened here?? I did some research and it turns out they wrote it as a pitch black drama about childhood trauma and mental illness. Universal bought the script and decided chop it up, throw in some yuks, and market it as a family comedy. The writers claim to have been so distraught when they saw the finished film they openly wept. It’s not tough to see why. This movie runs 81 minutes but it feels longer than Apocalypse Now....The Redux! With the French plantation scene! Basically what happens is this: there’s this kid Junior who was just born bad. He’s just a rotten fucking little ginger. The “film” opens with a montage of Junior (who narrates the film for reasons that are entirely unclear) being abandoned by a series of different parents and guardians after doing the following: pissing in a woman’s face, murdering a cat by feeding it dishwasher detergent, murdering a tank full of fish by vacuuming them up, and stealing a bulldozer and destroying a mobile home with the occupants inside. Junior is then brought to an orphanage run by nuns. There he repeatedly assaults the nuns and takes photos of the priest taking a shit. Meanwhile across town a pre-death John Ritter and his real life wife Amy Yasbeck are trying to conceive a child of their own because they reason that having a child will help elevate their social status. Turns out the lady is infertile so they go to an adoption agency run by Gilbert Gottfried...because you totally want THAT dude hooking you up with a little human. They take Junior home from the nunnery and shit meets fan immediately. The kid calls Jack Tripper a retard and sets his room on fire. Ritter’s old man, a hyper-republican department store owner played by two-time Academy Award nominee Jack Warden, shows up to meet the kid and can tell the little shit is bad news. “He could be a democrat!” the old man thunders! The kid steals his wallet. OH! I should probably mention there’s a subplot where the kid has been writing letters to his hero: a convicted mass murderer called the Bowtie Killer played by a pre-racist tirade Michael Richards. Ritter takes Junior on a camping trip where he pisses on the fire and lures a bear out of the woods to attack their fellow campers. Later they take Junior to a birthday party where he goes absolutely apeshit after being excluded from a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey: He throws all of the birthday presents in the swimming pool, loads the birthday cake with explosives, and drags a sprinkler into the house, causing thousands of dollars worth of damage. It’s at this point that the mom suggests that Ritter start beating Junior. Instead he lets Junior join the little league team he coaches. There, Junior beats the shit out of every member of the opposing team with a baseball bat. Why the police are not called we do not know. As the orphanage will not accept a return of Junior, Ritter decides that he will now smother him to death with a pillow. Before he can do that Kramer shows up posing as the kid’s uncle...having escaped from prison. They figure they can pawn the kid off on the serial killer. Before that can happen the Bowtie Killer decides that he will rape Amy Yasbeck on the kitchen floor. She’s like “wait...you say it’s 15 years since you’ve been with a woman?? Go ahead and do your thing then!” Let me say it again...this movie is rated PG. I pretty much tuned out after this scene cuz god...DAMN!. The kid and the mom get kidnapped and there’s a stupid ass car chase and Ritter catches the kid and decides he wants him after all. Amy Yasbeck is stuffed into a suitcase and thrown into the back of a truck that is hauling pigs. The last shot of the movie is of her peering out of the suitcase and looking directly into a pig’s sphincter patio. This is how the movie ends. Jesus wept.
*originally posted on August 31, 2018