“He hates these cans. Stay away from the cans.”

Justin’s rating: Things are about to start happening to this review, I can feel it!

Justin’s review: Steve Martin’s one of those actors I never go out of my way to see, exactly, but if he happens to show up in a flick I’m watching? It’s a net positive. Martin radiates this confident kind of comedy and does a whole lot with facial acting that’s fun to watch. However, I’ve never viewed his breakout role, The Jerk, and I felt that it was high time to rectify that oversight.

Back when “jerk” meant more of an idiot than a scumbag, Martin starred as Navin, a guy so oblivious that he doesn’t realize he was adopted into a black family. Putting on his goggles,  Navin heads out into the world to find his place in it. A road trip with a doofus? This might as well be an ancestor of Dumb and Dumber.

Along the way, Navin gets a job at a gas station, adopts a dog, joins the circus, discovers his “special purpose,” and becomes an inventor. His exuberant enthusiasm and chronic cluelessness endear him to some and get him into trouble with many more. Oh, and a sniper’s trying to take him out because his name was picked out of random in the phone book.

Martin’s having such a good time with all of his physical comedy and manic overacting that it becomes contagious. There’s no pride at stake here, no desire to be seen as a “serious” actor. He’s being a zany goof with no greater ambition than to make you giggle. The more absurd a situation can get, the happier he is — and the better a chance that we might find it amusing.

“Amusing” is how I found The Jerk, not uproariously funny or antiquatedly boring. It won a few genuine chuckles out of me, but sometimes there were good stretches where I was watching, stone-faced, an extended gag that didn’t connect to me. The shallow rags-to-riches plot means that the comedy absolutely has to land because there’s nothing else there, and that’s why I felt this was uneven at best.

That said, I did appreciate how certain moments would zig instead of zag due to Navin’s ignorant perspective, and, like with most of my encounters with Steve Martin, this ended up being a net positive. I just wish it had vibed with me a whole lot more.

Intermission!

• All you need is your friends and your thermos
• He’s got horrible rhythm
• Those are some nice birthday presents
• “You mean I’m going to stay this color?”
• Don’t walk through poop
• “Lord love the workin’ man, don’t trust Whitey.”
• Shortest hitchhiking ride ever
• $1.10 an hour… was that a good starting wage in 1979? I’m too lazy to look it up.
• A gas station bathroom could make for an amazing bedroom
• That’s one way to ruin a wedding
• “I can’t make out the license plate, but it’s pulling a small church.”
• MORE CANS!
• “Oh my God, I’m endangering your life!”
• You can drive a car on the rims. Probably shouldn’t. But you can.
• “Just looking around here I can tell that you’re a genuinely dirty person!”
• “What’s happening to my SPECIAL PURPOSE?”
• You can call many things a “she”
• Cup O’ Pizza
• It’s tough for cosmetologists to handle weightlessness
• Girls don’t like it when you lick their face