Word: jerked
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JUST BEFORE The Jerk awkwardly meanders into its last few glossy seconds, Navin Johnson (Steve Martin) stares despondently into the camera, sighs melodramatically and declaims, "It's an old story--one you've probably heard before--but I never thought it would happen to me!" Navin is referring to his extremely brief career as an overnight business success--and his even speedier denouement--but the only verisimilitude the cliche holds in this epitome of trite movies seems to emanate from Martin's own soul...
...Southern California entertainment racket for every dollar it eagerly offers to him, Martin quickly has come to bask in the pecuniary reflections of his egomania--recently bolstered by the sales of Cruel Shoes (by the Writer), Comedy is Not Pretty (by Martin the Record Maker) and now The Jerk (by Martin the Actor and Screenwriter...
Though his resume may qualify him for Renaissance Man of 1980, The Jerk imparts a sense of certainty to what Cruel Shoes strongly suggested: Martin should have preserved his integrity as a Comedian by sticking to the stage. We may see fit to excuse ex-football players and offspring of has-beens for deluging book stores and movie theaters with sloppily-executed self-glorification, but it is difficult to forgive Martin, whose idiosyncratic combination of spasticism and smoothness--which earned him his first taste of stardom while on the club circuit might still work if he hadn't taken...
Carl Gottlieb and Michael Elias must share the blame for The Jerk's tedious and disjointed script, which features Navin as the adopted son of poor blacks in Mississippi who leaves his family's shack to "find himself" in St. Louis. Navin, the Jerk, lacks any semblance of social grace or intelligence; it is all too evident from Scene One that he will trip over any wild 'n crazy opportunity that might chance to extend its foot. Good idea (Jerry Lewis pumped it for a lot of mileage), but Martin, Gottlieb and Elias fail miserably in attempting its execution...
...that's only the serious, dramatic side of this versatile film. For comedy-lovers, Martin et. al have enriched The Jerk with a veritable cornucopia of third-grade potty humor. There are jokes about farting and saying "shit" and discovering sexual organs, to cite just a few. And for the more sophisticated viewer, say, a seventh-grader, The Jerk features a condom falling out of Navin's wallet when he meets Marie, not to mention jokes about Navin's naivete--like his misconception about the meaning of the phrase "blow job" or his run-in with a man named "Iron...