The Jerk
Navin is an idiot. He grew up in Mississippi as adopted son of a black family but on his 18th birthday he feels he wants to discover the rest of the world and sets out to St. Louis. There everyone exploits his naivety, but then a simple invention brings him a fortune.
18 September 1946, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
18 May 1922, Revere, Massachusetts, USA
9 June 1931, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, USA
18 September 1950, Kern, California, USA
29 August 1928, New York City, New York, USA
September 3, 1944 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
21 November 1917, Milan, Missouri, USA
13 March 1926, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
6 March 1947, The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA
11 October 1950, Los Angeles, California, USA
13 May 1922, Chicago, Illinois, USA
February 13, 2010
92 minutes of direct and sweet surrealism
April 06, 2006
The whole thing is uneven and slight, but the highlight moments guilty-pleasure us with the sort of stupid-funny that's 'LOL' quotable afterward.
June 24, 2006
The comedy runs out of steam when the jerk makes good, but laugh for laugh it's probably a better investment than 10.
July 31, 2005
While The Jerk is an extremely episodic little movie, that's a malady easily forgiven -- simply because the episodes are so damn funny.
May 09, 2005
The laughs aren't steady, but they're persistent, and the film moves fast enough to compensate for its unevenness.
February 02, 2009
An artless, non-stop barrage of off-the-wall situations, funny and unfunny jokes, generally effective and sometimes hilarious sight gags and bawdy non sequiturs.
December 12, 2012
An oddball odyssey so strange, filled with non-sequiturs so funny, and decorated by a romance so sweet, it was an inevitable star-maker.
July 05, 2005
We get the sense at times that the cast and crew arrived at a location, found the script bankrupt of real laughs, and started looking around for funny props.
February 02, 2009
If only he could have satisfied himself with this area of expertise, people would still talk of Steve Martin as one of the kings of comic cinema.
February 06, 2005
Martin's one-liners are pretty funny, very dry, and awfully quotable.
February 02, 2009
Its humor is successful and unsuccessful by turns, and although Comedian Carl Reiner is the director, the instinct here is to give most of both credit and blame to Martin.
January 25, 2006
Steve Martin is at the height of his comic powers in this very un-PC comedy.
