Having cornered the market in making the grossout comedy an annual event (Dumb and Dumber, There's Something About Mary, Me, Myself and Irene ), the Farrelly brothers have taken to farming out their ideas so that the eager public can have a ready supply of films containing jokes about illnesses, prosthetics which fly off at regular intervals and sundry body parts inserted into animals' rear ends. The list of films 'produced by', 'written by' or even 'inspired by' these two is growing fast but so far none of these side projects has hit paydirt. Movies such as Outside Providence made very little impact at the box office and this latest venture, produced by the dynamic duo and directed by longtime protege J. B. Rogers, is little more than a pale rendition of There's Something About Mary and Me, Myself and Irene.
Chris Klein (Election, American Pie) plays the gullible orphan Gilly, a caring-sharing kinda guy who spends his days rescuing lost and injured animals. When he hears of a beautiful new hairdresser in town, he is swift to go and check her out and falls head over heels with the ditzy Josephine (Heather Graham). Soon the pair are inseparable, despite the protestations of Josephine's just above trailer trash mother Valdine (Sally Field) and her voicebox-bedecked father Walter (Richard Jenkins). The parents want someone better for their daughter, ideally a rich former suitor who can improve their own lives as well.
The course of true love is further complicated by Gilly's bizarre discovery that Valdine and Walter may in fact be his own long-lost parents. As a result, Josephine is despatched to the rich kid's house in another state and Gilly becomes the town's laughing stock for having slept with his sister.
While most of this set-up has familiar traits from previous films by the Farrellys (most noticeably the wide-eyed innocence of the crossed lovers), it fails to deliver enough laughs once the first quarter of the movie is completed. There are also the usual attempts at queasy humour (the father's illness, Gilly being assisted by an amputee, Gilly being forced to march through town with his hand inserted into a cow's anus), but the whole affair seems forced and contrived. It's as if the film were constructed using a laugh-by-numbers blueprint, but without any real cleverness in making it flow smoothly.
Klein reprises the same kindhearted but dumb role from his previous main films, which is a shame as he is an appealing actor who needs to be stretched. Graham has little of substance to work with but as usual is game for the most ridiculous situations. The rest of the cast are equally gung-ho, but they are treading water in a script of some mediocrity. What sets out with some pace and decent gags soon becomes manufactured, and worst of all for a comedy, just plain dull.
