JOE DIRT: BEAUTIFUL LOSER

US , 2015, 104 minutes, Colour.
David Spade, Christopher Walken, Brittany Daniel, Dennis Miller, Adam Beach, Patrick Warburton.
Directed by Fred Wolf.

This is a comedy for completists. Many audiences enjoyed the original film but seem to be unanimous in not appreciating this sequel, although it was written by its star and director, David Spade and Fred Wolf. It went straight to website screening.

Joe Dirt was an ordinary character – with the touch of the Forest Gump, a mixture of innocence and naivete with a certain shrewdness. He is something of an embodiment of the less than average American.

In this film, he is married with children, has a job, has some friends and associates – but is the victim of fate and other people’s putting him down. The film has many comic touches, quite a number of them crude, as well as group pathos with Joe and his family.

When a tornado takes him back into the past, he has to relive his past, his quest for his wife, clashes with rivals, experiences with his father, testing his self-esteem so that he can arrive back and reconnect with his family.

There are small touches of irony as he goes through this journey, the audience knowing what was to happen to him and to others characters, especially the young woman to whom he is attracted who will be his wife.

In this way the film is a piece of average Americana, a picture of the underdog (sometimes deserved, sometimes not) who comes through all his ordeals.