by Thomas Ferguson

Ladies and gentlemen, I have found it! I have found the place where every recycled, unfunny joke; every stupid, idiotic piece of dialogue; every cliché, stale idea goes to die. They have all ended up in the worst movie of the year, thus far. Actually, one of the worst in quite sometime. This cinematic landfill is Hot Rod. God help us all!

Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg plays Rod Kimble, a clueless, talentless stuntman who has a dream to be half the stuntman his dead father used to be. He got part of it right. The “half” part, but in his case, you’d have to add the word “wit” to the end.

He tries stunt after stunt and falls flat on his butt every time. He’s the biggest loser you’d ever want to meet. Everyone knows it, including his tough as nails stepfather Frank (Deadwood’s Ian McShane) who constantly puts him down. They have a tradition of wrestling in the basement to prove who the better man is. Rod always loses, until Frank suffers a massive heart attack. Frank becomes bed-ridden and needs an expensive operation to survive. Rod will not let Frank die. He decides to perform the jump of a lifetime to raise the money to save Frank’s life. Not because he loves Frank, but because he wants Frank to get better so he can kick his ass all over again….Ahh, how sweet!

Yep, this is the main plot. See what I’m working with here? Armed with a motley crew of friends, a head full of empty ideas, and a dream, Rod sets out to prove to himself, his family, and the girl of his dreams(Wedding Crasher’s Isla Fisher) that he is a man. A dumb man, but a man just the same.

I’m not going to waste time trying to explain this movie. Let me put it to you like this. It was the longest ninety minutes of my life. I found myself laughing at the movie. Not because it was funny, but because of the audience reaction. You think I’m brutal, you should have heard the comments around me. There were about four really funny jokes in the whole movie. The biggest joke was on the audience. I felt as if I was being punked.

Speaking of punked, Academy Award-winning actress Sissy Spacek played Rod’s devoted mom. WHY???? Did she lose a bet or something? The biggest waste of talent since…hmm let me think, Eddie Murphy in Norbit.

If you want a good laugh, stay away from this movie. You’d get bigger laughs at your dentist office having a root canal.