It’s hard, no, make that impossible, to introduce you to the happily straight jacketed, shroom-hilled land that exists in the minds of David Cross and Bob Odenkirk.
The two comedians lured a legendary and still growing collegiate cult following with the hilarious mid-’90s HBO series “Mr. Show,” even though it only ran for three seasons. When the show was abruptly cancelled, everyone hailed them as genius martyrs and ravenously craved for more.
That is, until they created this long, long shelved cinematic disaster known as Run Ronnie Run! The movie is a one hour, 15-minute version of a 20-minute “Mr. Show” skit featuring a smashy trashy drunk named Ronnie (a badly wigged David Cross) who can’t stop getting arrested. It’s also about the man who makes him an American celebrity “badass,” the smarmy Brit and oddly named Terry Twillstein (Bob Odenkirk).
But being the half-assed film this is, you need to see it for yourself. Example: Here’s the opening scene:
Stupid, trashy, redneck white girl with saggy tits: He ain’t gonna eat it (referring to a dog staring at a puddle of vomit in a gas station parking lot).
Clay (stupid, balding, accident prone redneck who always wears flannel. I think he’s gay): A hungry dog will eat anything. Come on, dog, eat that vomit!
Stupid hungry dog: (eats the vomit).
As the movie goes on, you too, will begin to wish that you were eating vomit in a gas station parking lot instead of watching Ronnie enrage cops by stealing an Elvis impersonator’s wig and hiding in barrels full of oil.
It’s not all saggy tits and puke, though. There’s also a saggy, pukish plot.
Out for the quick buck, Terry Twillstein notices that Ronnie is always getting arrested and, after failing as an entrepreneur of kitchen appliances, takes Ronnie to Hollywood to make him star in a television show that highlights all of Ronnie’s mishaps with the police. Airing in America, the show obviously becomes an instant hit and soon Ronnie is plucked from that gas station chugging beers to partying poolside with semi-big hitters like John Stamos, Scott Ian, and the lead singer from Anthrax. Garry Shandling even gives him two joints (probably to make viewers think he’s a hip stoner, even though no one cares who the hell he is).
Ronnie’s success makes him privy to banging the hot-and-dumb-and-full-of-cum Kayla (the hot-and-dumb Nikki Cox from the WB’s “Unhappily Ever After”). Cox can’t really act and she’s actually pretty annoying, but, boy, it sure is nice to see Ronnie ogle her big, fake titties. She wears a bikini for most of the film, which is good, because you can perv-up her boobs and ignore her unimportant dialogue. But wait, that’s exactly what’s so tarded about this movie. Bob and David, funny as they are, have spent years bitching about the lack of creativity in Hollywood. They had a shot at making their one absolute contribution and it ends up only three notches higher than Joe Dirt – albeit 20 above Dickie Roberts.
David Spade is so bad.
If anything, rent this trash for $4.50 just for the scene where Ronnie and Kayla link up.
Ronnie: How’s about Dr. Ronnie takes this here hard-on and writes you a prescription for a hot beef injection?
The scene then jumps immediately to a music video by THREE TIMES ONE MINUS ONE, a fictitious R&B group comprised of Bob and Dave as seen in season two of “Mr. Show.” The movie really should have just consisted of this video and nothing else.
In it, a silk robed, wigged Cross and a heavily pimped-out Odenkirk, complete with top hat and dreadlocks, sing on a rooftop about the “monstrosity of ecstasy, biography of nudity” that is the beef injection of Ronnie and Layla. The duo is shown dipping diamond necklaces in chocolate, as well as placing “erotic magazines and erotic tangerines” around lingerie-clad women. Cross then gets into the missionary style position with a black chick on a bed and croons “Tonight I challenge your pussy to a fight, a pussy-doodle-doo. I stuck my peeeeeenis into your thoughtful vagina.” Odendirk chimes in with with an, “Aw, Shit!” and then traces his cane across an open anatomy book showing illustrations of vaginas – class.
After this, the movie surges downhill in content and laughs, with Jack Black cameo-ing (he owes his career to these guys) as a street sweeper who sings, alongside a cartoon purple squirrel, about kicking women in the crotch. Shoot me.
One time my ‘stached-roommate Nate and I saw an enormously fat little kid pushing an entire shopping cart of food all by himself in a Publix parking lot. Was he going to eat all that food by himself? Either way, it reminded me of the ending of this movie, where a really fat kid beats up 8 henchmen (Matrix-style! So gay) thus freeing Ronnie from jail.
The fat kid should never come out on top.
Kevin Dean can be reached at biigdeano@aol.com.