Tom Greens MTV show tends to swing wildly from incredibly funny to just plain rubbish. Freddy Got Fingered is basically more of the same, only missing one critical ingredient: the reaction of passing innocents, watching in horror as Green publicly acts the mentalist. Starved of that ingredient, this feature-length vehicle for the self-styled Canadian madman lands well wide of its target.
Green plays Gord Brody, the struggling cartoonist who yearns to have his sketches accepted by Hollywood, in order to escape the rancid bellowing authority of his pig-ignorant father (Rip Torn). Empowered by paraplegic girlfriend Betty (Marisa Coughlin), who herself harbours ambitions to captain the worlds first rocket-powered wheelchair, Gord gains the self-belief to make his centaur-based cartoon show a reality. Meanwhile, grudging brother Freddy (Eddie Kaye Thomas) himself a grown man – ends up in the Institute for Sexually Molested Children as a result of some particularly inventive accusations flung by our (anti)hero.
Thats the plotline in a nutshell, though more often than not it makes way for Greens trademark animal-fondling, roadkill-toying and bum-bum singing. Its as if theres a deliberate intention to offend, a purpose thats essentially flawed because most of these boundaries have already been broken by countless other gross-out flicks and MTV time-fillers of the past five years.
When Gord puts his dads suit on backwards and struts in front of the mirror, or attaches sausages to his fingers to play the keyboard, its funny. Lets face it, Tom Green is a funny guy. But his most anarchic, cutting edge and most importantly NEW material has already been done ten times better on his TV show. This is a forced version of that material, devoid of all spontaneity and treated to mass overkill by Greens self-engrossed directorial approach.