| Freddy Got Fingered | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Tom Green |
| Written by |
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| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Mark Irwin |
| Edited by | Jacqueline Cambas |
| Music by | Mike Simpson |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date |
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Running time | 87 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $14 million[2] |
| Box office | $14.3 million[2] |
Freddy Got Fingered is a 2001 Americansurrealblack comedy film directed byTom Green and written by Green andDerek Harvie. The film stars Green alongsideRip Torn,Marisa Coughlan,Eddie Kaye Thomas andJulie Hagerty. The plot follows a childishslacker who wishes to become a professional cartoonist while dealing with his abusive father's behavior. The title of the film refers to a plot point where Green's character falsely accuses his father of sexually abusing his brother, the eponymous Freddy.
Principal photography took place from August to October 2000, and was mostly shot inVancouver, while some scenes were shot inSanta Monica, California. The film also contained animated sequences byChris Prynoski and his animation studioTitmouse Productions. Before release, the film was moderately toned down to secure anR-rating from theMPAA after the film received an NC-17, per request from the studio. A scene that featured an alternative ending to the film was released as an extra on the film's DVD as a result.
The film was released in the United States on April 20, 2001, by20th Century Fox and received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics, with many complaints about itsgross-out humor. Some also referred to it as one of the worst films of all time. While initially acommercial failure, grossing $14.3 million against its $14 million budget, it later became profitable after its release on home video. It received fiveGolden Raspberry Awards of itseight nominations, as well as aDallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Worst Picture. Despite the film's initial reception, it has since garnered some positive critical re-evaluation, as well as acult following.
Unemployed 28-year-oldcartoonist Gordon "Gord" Brody leaves his parents' home inPortland, Oregon, to pursue his lifelong ambition of obtaining a contract for an animated television series. His parents, Jim and Julie, give him aChrysler LeBaron which he drives toLos Angeles and starts work at a cheese sandwich factory to make money. Gord shows his drawings to Dave Davidson, theCEO of a major animation studio; Davidson commends the artwork but calls the concepts depicted, including a vigilante "X-Ray Cat", nonsensical. Disheartened, Gord quits his job and returns to his parents.
Jim constantly insults and belittles Gord following his return, telling him to forget about being an animator and "get a job". When Gord pressures his friend Darren into skating on a wooden half-pipe he has built outside the Brody home, Darren falls and breaks his leg. At the hospital, Gord impersonates a doctor, delivers a baby, and meets an attractive nurse named Betty. Betty uses a wheelchair, has a penchant forfellatio, and wants to create a rocket-powered wheelchair. Gord lies to his father that he has got a job in the computer industry and goes out to a restaurant with Betty, pretending he is at work.
However, Jim sees him there anddisparages Betty due to her disabilities. After a fight in the restaurant, Gord is arrested and Betty bails him out. Following her advice, Gord attempts to continue drawing; however, he gets into an argument with Jim, who then smashes Gord's half-pipe. Gord and his parents then go to a family therapy session, where Gord falsely accuses his father offingering Gord's younger brother, Freddy.
The 25-year-old Freddy is sent to a home for sexually molested children despite clearly being an adult. Julie, fed up with Jim's real and perceived behavior, leaves Jim and ends up dating the basketball playerShaquille O'Neal. While in a drunken stupor, Jim tells Gord how much of a disappointment he is to him. Affected by his father's words, Gord decides to abandon his aspirations to be a cartoonist and gets a job at a local sandwich shop.
After seeing a television news report on Betty's successful rocket-powered wheelchair, Gord is inspired to pursue his dreams once again. He returns toHollywood with a concept based on his relationship with his father: an adult animated series calledZebras in America. Jim follows Gord there after threatening Darren into revealing his whereabouts. While Gord is pitching the show to Davidson, Jim bursts in and trashes Davidson's office.
Thinking Jim's actions are part of Gord's pitch, Davidson greenlightsZebras in America and gives Gord a million-dollarcheck. Gord spends a quarter of that money on an elaborate thank you to Betty for inspiring him, using a helicopter to deliver jewels to her. She thanks him but says she really only wants to perform fellatio on him. Gord spends the remainder of his windfall to relocate part of the Brody house toPakistan with his father inside, unconscious—a response to Jim's earlier put-down that "If this were Pakistan, you would have been sewing soccer balls when you were four years old!". A furious Jim chases Gord into a tent, where Gord masturbates a bull elephant and causes it to spray his father with semen.
Gord and Jim soon come to terms, but are then abducted and held hostage. The kidnapping becomes a news item, as Gord's series has already become popular. After 18 months in captivity, Gord and Jim return to theUnited States, where a huge crowd—including Betty, Darren, and a protestor holding a sign asking “When the fuck is this movie going to end?”—welcomes them home.
Principal photography took place between August to October 2000, and was primarily filmed inSaginaw Township and cities;Surrey,Delta (Boundary Bay Airport),Belcarra (Burrard Inlet),Port Moody (Reed Point Marina),Burnaby (Lougheed Mall) andSquamish (Squamish Airport) and inSanta Monica, California.[3]Chris Prynoski, formerBeavis and Butt-Head andDaria animator, produced the "Zebras in America" animation segment as the first project for his company,Titmouse Productions.[4]
The theatrical release for the film is 87 minutes and it was received anR rating by theMotion Picture Association of America following requested cuts to tone it down from an NC-17, a rating thatTom Green described as "like porn with murder." As an extra on theDVD release, Green also included a version of the ending, where a small child character gets sliced by the airplane propeller, which he had edited to secure an R rating with a last-minute addedADR dub for a theatrical release. The PG-rated cut ofFreddy Got Fingered is only three minutes long with a comedic voiceover. Some footage was leaked by theNewgrounds website some[quantify] weeks before release.[5] Years later[when?],Tom Fulp, owner of Newgrounds, confirmed that the leak was amarketingstunt.[6]
| Freddy Got Fingered: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | |
|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by various artists | |
| Released | April 17, 2001 (2001-04-17) |
| Genre | |
| Length | 36:37 |
| Label | Restless Records |
Themusic score was composed byMike Simpson of the electronic bandDust Brothers, who had previously scored other films such as the 1999 filmFight Club and the 2000 comedy filmRoad Trip, the latter in which Tom Green also acted. Simpson would go on to collaborate with Green onTom Green's House Tonight. The soundtrack was released on April 17, 2001 byRestless Records and had consisted of mostlypunk rock,hardcore punk andelectronic music.[7]
Some of the songs featured in the film, but not on the official soundtrack include "Everything Turns Grey" byAgent Orange, "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)" byJAY-Z, "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" byThe New Seekers, "I've Gotta Be Me" bySammy Davis Jr., and "The Real Slim Shady" byEminem.[8]
On a budget of $14 million,Freddy Got Fingered grossed $14,254,993 domestically and $78,259 overseas for a worldwide total of $14,333,252, making it initially acommercial failure[2] though it did eventually turn a profit from DVD sales. The film earned $24,300,000 from DVD sales, and was among the top 50 weekly DVD rentals chart.[9] Green has stated in a few interviews in 2010 that DVD sales have been growing many years later and that there was a cult following.[10] In a 2017 interview, Green stated that the box office receipts for the film did not reflect the actual attendance, as he thinks that moviegoers under the age of 17 bought tickets toCrocodile Dundee in Los Angeles and then snuck into the theater showing his film.[11]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 12% of 98 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.3/10. The website's consensus reads: "Unfavorably comparing it with such infamously bad titles asBattlefield Earth, a significant number of critics are calling Tom Green's extreme gross-out comedy the worst movie they have ever seen."[12]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 13 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".[13] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gaveFreddy Got Fingered an average grade of "C−" on an A+ to F scale.[14]
CNN'sPaul Clinton called it "quite simply the worst movie ever released by a major studio inHollywood history" and listed the running time as "87 awful minutes."[15]Chicago Sun-Times criticRoger Ebert gave the film a rare zero-star rating and listed it as one of his most hated films of all time,[16] and described the film thus: "This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels. […] The day may come whenFreddy Got Fingered is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny."[17]
Along with Ebert, hisAt the Movies co-host,Richard Roeper, called it "horrible" and expressed the view that Green was a poor comedian, saying that "he should be flipping burgers somewhere". Roeper was also offended by the numerous "gross-out" gags.[18] In 2003, Roeper put it on his list of his forty least favorite films of all time to that point, reiterating his dislike of Green's comedy in general.[19]
Film criticLeonard Maltin gaveFreddy Got Fingered a "BOMB" rating in his bookLeonard Maltin's Movie Guide. He expressed views of the film similar to those of Ebert and Roeper: "Instantly notorious word-of-mouth debacle became the poster child for all that's wrong with movie comedy. […] Gags include the maiming of an innocent child and a newborn spun around in the air by its umbilical cord—compounded by the almost unimaginable ineptitude with which they're executed."[20]
In 2017, the film critic ofThe Guardian,Peter Bradshaw, cited it as the worst film he had ever seen.[21] Likewise,James Berardinelli, who had given the film a zero-star rating upon its release and stated that he had "gotten better entertainment value from acolonoscopy,"[22] said in 2008 that it was his least favourite film of all time.[23]
David Stratton andMargaret Pomeranz ofSBS'The Movie Show were not impressed by the film's content and tone. Stratton gave the film zero stars while Pomeranz gave it one star.[24] The magazineComplex included the film in itslisticle, "25 Movies That Killed Careers".[25]A. O. Scott ofThe New York Times compared the film to conceptualperformance art and praised it "guardedly and with a slightly guilty conscience".[26]
The film received eightGolden Raspberry Award nominations in 2002, winning five. In acknowledgment of the critical consensus regarding the film's merits, Green personally appeared at the ceremony to accept his awards, bringing his own red carpet and saying: "I'd just like to say to all the other nominees in the audience: I don't think that I deserve it any more than the rest of you. I'd like to say that; I don't think that it would be true, though."[27] Green would go on to play the harmonica badly for so long that he was dragged off the stage.[27] In February 2010, it was announced thatFreddy Got Fingered was nominated for "Worst Picture of the Decade" for the30th Golden Raspberry Awards but "lost" toBattlefield Earth.[28]Freddy Got Fingered also garnered seven nominations at the 2001Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, five of which were wins.[29][30] Following his wins, The Stinkers went ahead and designed their very own trophy for him to collect.[31]
| Date | Award | Category | Recipients | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Stinkers Bad Movie Awards | Worst Picture | Freddy Got Fingered (Fox) | Won | [29][30] |
| Worst Director | Tom Green | Won | |||
| Worst Actor | Won | ||||
| Most Painfully Unfunny Comedy | Freddy Got Fingered (Fox) | Won | |||
| Worst Song in a Film or Its End Credits | "The Sausage Song" by Tom Green | Nominated | |||
| Most Intrusive Musical Score | Freddy Got Fingered (Fox) | Nominated | |||
| Worst On-Screen Couple | Tom Green and any person, animal, or foreign object | Won | |||
| March 23, 2002 | Golden Raspberry Awards | Worst Picture | Freddy Got Fingered (20th Century Fox) | Won | [27] |
| Worst Actor | Tom Green | Won | |||
| Worst Supporting Actor | Rip Torn | Nominated | |||
| Worst Supporting Actress | Drew Barrymore | Nominated | |||
| Julie Hagerty | Nominated | ||||
| Worst Screen Couple | Tom Green andany animal he abuses | Won | |||
| Worst Director | Tom Green | Won | |||
| Worst Screenplay | Tom Green andDerek Harvie | Won | |||
| March 6, 2010 | Worst Picture of the Decade | Freddy Got Fingered (20th Century Fox) | Nominated | [28] |
Freddy Got Fingered began to see more praise over time, becoming acult classic. CriticNathan Rabin ofThe A.V. Club gave the film a rave review in his "My Year of Flops" column, comparing it to the work ofJean-Luc Godard and calling the film "less as a conventional comedy than as a borderlineDadaist provocation, a $15 million prank at the studio's expense" adding "it's utterly rare and wondrous to witness the emergence of a dazzlingly original comic voice. I experienced that glorious sensation watchingFingered...I can honestly say that I've never seen anything remotely like it" and rated it a "Secret Success."[32] In a later column, Rabin stated "I was a little worried that I'd catch flak for giving mad props to a film as divisive and widely reviled asFreddy Got Fingered. So I was relieved to discover that every single comment agreed with my assessment of it... It also didn't escape my attention that myFreddy post was the most commented-upon post in the history of My Year of Flops by a huge margin."[33] ComedianChris Rock listedFreddy Got Fingered as one of his favorite movies on his website.[34]
Later, in his review of the filmStealing Harvard, a film co-starring Green, Ebert wrote:"Seeing Tom Green reminded me, as how could it not, of his movieFreddy Got Fingered, which was so poorly received by the film critics that it received only one lonely, apologetic positive review on theTomatometer. I gave it—let's see—zero stars. Bad movie, especially the scene where Green was whirling the newborn infant around his head by its umbilical cord. But the thing is, I rememberFreddy Got Fingered more than a year later. I refer to it sometimes. It is a milestone. And for all its sins, it was at least an ambitious movie, a go-for-broke attempt to accomplish something. It failed, but it has not left me convinced that Tom Green doesn't have good work in him. Anyone with his nerve and total lack of taste is sooner or later going to make a movie worth seeing."[35]
In Green's interview onThe Opie and Anthony Show, hostGregg "Opie" Hughes said the film had begun to be regarded as "one of the funniest movies ever made".[36] Green said the film had sold a million copies,[36] and that he wished to make adirector's cut due to a lot of footage not making the final cut.[36] Green said that he was not trying to makeThe Jazz Singer and that fans shout out lines from the film regularly at his stand-up performances.[36]
Unreality Magazine featured the film in its list of "10 Hilarious Movies That Received Terrible Reviews", noting that critics' taste in comedies tend not to reflect the general public.[37] Vadim Rizov for IFC.com wrote an article titled "In defense ofFreddy Got Fingered". He calls the film one of the great underrated comedies of the decade and says the film would go on to do better if it was released today, comparing it to the successfulAdult Swim seriesAqua Teen Hunger Force.[38]
Green stated that he would like to do a "director's cut" DVD release of the film in 2011 to celebrate the 10th anniversary.[10][39] On March 9, 2010, onLoveline, Green announced that a director's cut would be released.[40] In an answer to a question from a fan on his website tomgreen.com in December 2010, Green said that there was no progress yet in regards to the director's cut. In aReddit "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) Green did on October 17, 2013, Green responded to a question regarding the release of the director's cut with: "The studio didn't give me the footage to make the directors cut. I want to do it. If you contactNew Regency or20th Century Fox and tell them you want a directors cut [sic] maybe it will happen!"[41]
