Movie 43 (R)

The really unfortunate thing about “Movie 43” – directed by a slew of actors/directors – is that after the first 20 minutes of the movie you want to turn it off (or walk out of the theater, had you the misfortune of paying $11 to see it), but that it slowly warms its way into your heart, and makes you laugh. However, the movie never really manages to make up for its choppy, albeit offensive start. The film, which is essentially a series of shorts, navigates its way through extreme crassness and vulgarity to cartoon-like violence and sophomoric humor. And while some of the skits are earnestly funny, the overall effort comes off as something better reserved for a low budget flop instead of lining its cast with Academy Award winners aplenty.

Probably the most offensive short of the entire film is saved for first, although we’re not really sure why this is. Hugh Jackman (Best Performance by an Actor, “Les Miserables,” Best Actor, Saturn Award “X-Men,” and recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame) plays a man on a blind date who has a pair of testicles growing from his neck. His poor date, played heroically by Kate Winslet, navigates the awkward date that involves Jackman placing his neck-testicles on top of her head, in a bowl of soup, and we are even treated to hairs falling from them into his own soup. The scene is not funny, and is full blown offensive, and directed insanely by Peter Farrelly of “There’s Something About Mary” and “Fever Pitch” fame. I say insane, because he must of lost his mind. The same must be true of Jackman.

Other skits bumble along in this manner, some improving the overall quality of the movie, with other knocking it back down a rung whenever it gets too clever for its own good. Jason Sudeikis plays Batman in a skit that is actually pretty funny alongside Robin (Justin Long, “Waiting”). However, this skit barely manages to wash the bad taste from your mouth from two previous skits: one, starring the beautiful Anna Faris who wants her fiancé to take a dump on her and a worse one starring Liev Schriever and Naomi Watts who are probably the worst parents to ever have a child. Rounding this out we have Richard Gere, coming off the tail of last year’s wonderful “Arbitrage” as the CEO of a company who is tackling the problem of why so many teenage boys unwittingly mutilate themselves when accidently discovering motorized fans while pleasuring their iBabe – a life-size female naked mannequin that plays music like an iPod. If this isn’t offensive enough, don’t worry – the doll comes in your choice of color – black or white.

Of course, the whole slew of half-baked ideas that crap over this movie are loosely strung together by a plot involving a crazed man (Dennis Quaid) pitching the idea for all these shorts to a Hollywood exec (Greg Kinnear, whose heartbreaking performance in “As Good as it Gets” I could actually see dying in this film). When Kinnear wont buy the filth for obvious reasons, Quaid’s character pulls a gun, leading the two to Kinner’s bosse’s office for dialogue that is offensive on a whole other level that the film simply laughs at. Sometimes crassness can have a point, and sometimes it’s just crass for the sake of being crass. “Movie 43” is an example of the latter.

I imagine that “Movie 43” would have worked as a television skit variety show, as that is exactly what the entire movie feels like. It pulls its legion of actors, starring others such as Kiernan Culkan, Emma Stone, Elizabeth Banks, and Uma Thurman through half-formed skits and sophomoric humor that, honestly, aren’t even as funny as material on skit-based shows like “Saturday Night Live” or “In Living Color” this film tries so hard to emulate.

The sad aspect of “Movie 43” is that by the time you get to a few scenes that are actually funny (such as Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott kidnapping a leprechaun (voiced by Gerard Butler), the movie has left such a bad taste in your mouth that no amount of humor can rinse it out. And even when you do laugh, you almost feel guilty of it. One scene at the movie’s close involves a cartoon cat getting in a fight to the death match with Elizabeth banks, while another starring Terrence Howard (“Iron Man”) trying to pep up his basketball team will make you laugh guiltily, as his speech is so inherently racist I’m surprised the directors saw fit to include it.