Painful. Painful. Painful. Watching and listening to Chris Kattan's comedic
schtick in CORKY ROMANO for a long hour and an half is like enduring the sounds
of the proverbial fingernails across a blackboard. Kattan, last seen as the
organ donor in MONKEYBONE, uses spastic slapstick to get his laughs. Playing
dumb for all he's worth, Kattan does charm some members of the audience, but
they can have him. After CORKY ROMANO, he goes on my short list of the least
tolerable comedians.
The silly plot features Corky Romano (Kattan) as he goes undercover as an FBI
agent. He is forced to do this by his crime family to recover the evidence
against Corky's father, Pops Romano (Peter Falk). Corky, a doofus who
accidentally does all of the right things, works as an assistant vet at Poodles
and Pussies. The film reaches its low point when a woman demands that he put
her fat cat to sleep.
Inside the bureau Corky goes by the name of Agent Pissant, which most people
mispronounce. This mispronunciation joke goes on and on, long past the time
when you're ready to cry, "Uncle!"
After five minutes, I was ready to run screaming for the exits. Pops expressed
my sentiments best when he complained to his boys who were fawning over him.
"Stop that!" he yelled at them. "Stop It!" Too bad the projectionist wasn't
listening.
CORKY ROMANO runs 1:26. It is rated PG-13 for "drug and sex-related humor, and
for language" and would be acceptable for kids around 10 and up.
My son Jeffrey, age 12, gave the film **. He said that it had a dumb plot, dumb
characters and a lot of strange parts, but he thought some scenes were funny.
Copyright © 2001 Steve Rhodes
out of 4
