Word: navin
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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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...
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...
Consider the scene in which Navin meets Marie, played by the oh-so-cute Bernadette Peters. Less than five minutes after they have accidently met, Navin asks Marie for a date. Marie: "O.K." Navin: "Do you have a boyfriend?" Marie: "Well..." Pregnant, supposedly meaning-laden pause. Navin: "If I was your boyfriend, I'd be around all the time." Marie (brimming with passion): "Well, we have a date tomorrow." Nearby dog: "Woof...
...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 Balls" or the name of his dog: Shithead. Not the stuff sophisticated humor is made...
Granted, Martin's acting talent surfaces periodically, especially when he adopts the mien of one of his reportoire of nightclub personalities. A few minutes of film, chronicling Navin's first job as a gas station attendant in St. Louis, for example, allow Martin to strut his stuff on familiar territory; but those short scenes are eclipsed by Martin's overall prostitution of his skills in the better (or worse, as the case may be) part of The Jerk...