Corky Romano

Corky Romano’s family is in the mob. Corky Romano is an assistant veterinarian and doesn’t speak to his family anymore. But now that Pops Romano is about to be indicted on racketeering charges, the family needs a “nobody” to go undercover in the FBI and steal their evidence on Pops. Naturally, they call on their goofy relative Corky, to help them achieve their goal. Wackiness ensues?

Humor is a very subjective thing. Even more so, movies based on “stupid humor”, which is the type of “funny” that this kind of flick is going for, is even more subjective, and usually dependent on your mood and your appreciation for the film’s lead actor. In my case tonight, I was looking for some cheap laughs, I really like Chris Kattan (his fruity smile alone cracks me up) and I got enough guffaws out of this movie to recommend it to anyone looking for something very simple, very stupid and pretty funny, for the most part. The movie is basically Kattan. If you like his goofy characters, over-the-top gesticulations and idiotic demeanor, you will likely come out of this film with many laughs registered in your belly. I dug his take on this goofball and especially appreciated a few scenes in particular, one in which he sees a dead body for the first time, another in which he faces some skinheads and another, where he is high on coke. They really cracked me up. The rest of the film is filled with some laughs every now and then, helped by Chris Penn and Peter Berg, who played the brothers really well, and I want to especially thank the men behind this film for once again choosing an extra-sweet babe to star alongside the big-headed Kattan. Vinessa Shaw, I’m not sure where you’ve come from, or if you’re actually the brunette sister of BILLY MADISON’s own Bridgette Wilson, but thank you for wearing that sexy nurse’s uniform for a good part of the movie. You’ve made my night that much easier to download.

The plotline of this film obviously does not have much of a stranglehold on its goings-on, but it was surprisingly passable. It did falter a little near the end, when they made things a little “too easy” on everyone (and that whole Night Vulture thing wasn’t needed), and even went for a tear (what the hell?). See my SNL-movie theory at the top of this review for more on that. But on the whole, the story was obviously only there to serve the various “sketch” pieces set up for Kattan’s humor, and you either think they’re stupid and funny or stupid and unfunny. I thought the film was pretty funny for the most part, but noticed that the biggest laughs came from the moments in which Kattan was given his space to do “his thing”. I didn’t laugh when there were big set pieces like when he was caught on the hood of the car, or when his head was placed in a shaker machine, and definitely not when the midget kicked him in the head a la MATRIX/CHARLIE’S ANGELS (guys…please, let’s form a committee and stop with the completely unoriginal MATRIX parodies already!). But most of the time, I laughed just looking at dumb Corky’s face and you gotta give out some massive props to Kattan for that (whether the movie works or not, the poor bastard goes “all out” here!). He also had an amazing nemesis on the FBI, who has his own moment to shine as well (the guy’s name is Brick Davis and the scene in which he cracks up is hilarious!).

All in all, the movie does deliver the basics as described in my SNL-movie theory above, tosses in the obligatory gay, fart, drug and retard jokes, and I don’t think that anyone should go into this movie expecting much else than that. Basically, if you dig Kattan and his skits on SNL, you will likely enjoy this movie. If you don’t like Kattan or his skits on SNL, don’t bother seeing this movie and that’ll be that. I think I offered the same advice to Tom Green fans/non-fans for FREDDY GOT FINGERED and it just seems to make sense.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian