JOE DIRT
US, 2001, 91 minutes, Colour.
David Spade, Brittany Daniel, Dennis Miller, Adam Beach, Christopher Walken, Jaimie Pressley, Kid Rock, Eric Per Sullivan, Caroline Aaron, Fred Ward, Joe Don Baker, Rosanna Arquette, Rance Howard, Kathleen Freeman.
Directed by Dennie Gordon.
Joe Dirt was something of a hit when first released, a kind of hillbilly Forest Gump.
David Spade, who co-wrote the screenplay with Fred Wolf, is seen as an eccentric man working in Los Angeles, cleaning the toilets in a radio station. His distinctive appearance, apart from his being rather thin, is a long hairpiece which he explains was grafted onto his head when the top of his skull was missing at birth. He comes across staff members who ridicule him and then a producer who takes him in to be interviewed by the radio personality, Dennis Miller.
Joe Dirt recounts his story over several days, getting more and more listeners as the days go on, some incredulous, some laughing, but, eventually, getting a very sympathetic following.
His past is recounted in flashbacks with Eric Per Sullivan portraying the young Joe, even with the same hairpiece. When he and his parents go to the Grand Canyon, he is lost and he begins a long search for them.
The screenplay for the film in its flashbacks is quite picaresque, a whole range of episodes, some of them funny, some of them coarse, some of them crass (especially with bodily functions). At home, he falls in love with Brandy (Brittany Daniel) and she with him, some romantic episodes but he does not feel himself worthy and he is ridiculed and she pursued by one of the locals (Kid Rock). There are a lot of tangles with Brandy’s father (Joe Don Baker).
Off he goes on his search, always with Brandy in mind. He meets a sympathetic Indian, Adam Beach, selling on the side of the road. He comes across quite a number of girls, especially meeting Rosanna Arquette at a crocodile park. He gets a number of jobs but gets into all kinds of tangles. One of his best jobs is in New Orleans and he becomes very friendly with one of the locals, Christopher Walken, who seems to be very modest but when he does some heroic saving of people and Joe Dirt gets the credit, Joe announces to the media about the heroism – only to find that Walken was playing a Mafia chief who had given information to the police and was in the witness protection program.
Eventually, he gets a note from Brandy who tells him that his parents were killed in a car accident.
When Joe Dirt becomes a radio celebrity, his parents, Fred Ward and Caroline Aaron, turn up, completely exploitative, having left their son behind. They may come some kind of excuses but are unmasked as selfish. Brandy was trying to protect Joe from the bad news.
Ultimately, Joe Dirt goes to his favourite town, marries Brandy and gets the better of Kid Rock, and finds that the Mafia capo has decided to be in the witness protection program there and the proprietor of the crocodile show is also there.
A sequel was made 10 years later, capitalising on David Spade as Joe Dirt – but, in comparison with the first film, it seems very laboured, not having some of the charm and ingenuous humour of this original.
