Freddy Got Fingered

Freddy Got Fingered
Original film poster
Directed by	Tom Green
Written by	Tom Green Derek Harvie
Produced by	Larry Brezner Howard Lapides Lauren Lloyd
Starring	Tom Green Rip Torn Marisa Coughlan Eddie Kaye Thomas Harland Williams Anthony Michael Hall Julie Hagerty Darren Moore
Cinematography	Mark Irwin
Edited by	Jacqueline Cambas
Music by	Mike Simpson
Distributed by	20th Century Fox Regency Entertainment
Release date	April 20, 2001
Running time	89 min
Country	United States
Language	English

Freddy Got Fingered (2001) is a comedy film directed, written by and starring Tom Green. Some of the scenes are similar to the antics seen in his own The Tom Green Show and scenes in Road Trip. It is largely built around gross-out and shock humor. Much of the movie was filmed in Southern California, with select scenes filmed in Kincardine, Ontario, Canada.

Plot

Green plays a 28-year old part time slacker/cartoonist named Gordon "Gord" Brody who is pursuing his ambition to obtain a contract for a TV show.

After being told that his ideas are stupid and make no sense, he decides to move back home and rethink his future, much to his father's dismay. He has a handicapped love interest, played by Marisa Coughlan, and a best friend, played by Harland Williams, who has left Gord's lifestyle for a mainstream bank job. A major subplot is Gord's feud with his father, and at one point in the movie, Gord accuses his father, played by Rip Torn, of molesting his younger brother, Freddy (played by Eddie Kaye Thomas), despite having no evidence to support it.

Throughout the film, various subplots catalog Gord's daily experiences, such as one subplot involving a local neighborhood boy who finds himself injured as a result of various misfortunes, often involving Gord's entry onto the scene. Tom Green's then-wife Drew Barrymore has a cameo appearance, playing the receptionist at Mr. Dave Davidson's cartoon company.

Production

The theatrically released version of the movie is 89 minutes long and received an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America. As an extra on the DVD release, Green also included a version of the movie which he had edited to secure a PG rating. The PG-rated cut of Freddy Got Fingered is a mere three minutes long with a comedic voice over. Some footage was leaked by the Newgrounds website before the movie was released.

Critical response

The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews by critics, some of whom gave it zero stars. The Toronto Star created a one-time new rating just for Freddy Got Fingered, giving it "negative one star out of five stars." CNN's Paul Clinton called it "quite simply the worst movie ever released by a major studio in Hollywood history" and listed the running time as "86 awful minutes."

In a damning review Roger Ebert wrote that the film may more likely be seen one day as a "milestone of neo-surrealism" than funny. In this memorable scene Gord ties sausage to his fingers, plays the piano poorly, and chants "Daddy would you like some sausage?".

Roger Ebert gave the film a rare zero-stars rating and described the film's humor 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 when Freddy Got Fingered is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny.

Later, in his review of the film Stealing Harvard, Ebert wrote:

Seeing Tom Green reminded me, as how could it not, of his movie Freddy Got Fingered (2001), which was so poorly received by the film critics that it received only one lonely, apologetic positive review on the Tomatometer. 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 remember Freddy 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.

Film critic James Berardinelli also gave the film zero stars and mentioned:

...I have to report that this motion picture is arguably the worst piece of cinematic crap I have ever experienced theatrically. Hyperbole, you wonder? I looked through my list of zero-star movies and couldn't find one entry (except the immortal Zombie! vs. Mardi Gras, which was a straight-to-video release) that ranked as more difficult to endure.

One of the few notable critics who gave it a generally positive review was A. O. Scott of The New York Times, who compared the film to conceptual performance art. Another favorable review in August 2007 by Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club partially fulfilled Ebert's prediction: Rabin called the film a "borderline Dadaist provocation" and rated it a "Secret Success"

On an episode of MADtv Tom Green refused to promote the film and instead sucked on a cow's udder during the show's opening.

The film won in five categories at the 2001 Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Picture, Worst Actor, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay and Worst Screen Couple (Green and any animal he abuses). It was nominated for an additional three categories: Worst Supporting Actor (Rip Torn), Worst Supporting Actress (Julie Hagerty) and Worst Supporting Actress (Drew Barrymore). And, in acknowledgment of the critical consensus regarding the film's merits, Green appeared at the ceremony to accept his awards, 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.

Green eventually had to be dragged off the stage because he wouldn’t stop playing the harmonica.

Box office

The movie's budget was $14,000,000, and grossed $14,333,252 domestically. It ran for 59 days in North American cinemas. DVD rentals in the US grossed $24,300,000 during its stay on the top 50 weekly chart, allowing the film, despite its criticisms, to become financially successful.

See also

• List of American films of 2001
• List of films considered the worst

External links

• Freddy Got Fingered at IMDb
• Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension
• Freddy Got Fingered at Rotten Tomatoes
• Freddy Got Fingered at Box Office Mojo
• Mirror of the Official Web Site hosted on archive.org