The Jerk (1979)

[6]

Steve Martin and director Carl Reiner team up for this absurdist, serendipitous comedy about a poor country boy who leaves his family to discover what the big city has to offer him. Martin’s character is an oblivious man-child whose ignorance and confusion sees him through a series of comic set-pieces that give The Jerk a skit-comedy feel for a while. Highlights include a gas station sniper attack in which Martin thinks the shooter is aiming at oil cans instead of him, and an intimidating romantic entanglement with a domineering stunt-woman. And, of course, the fact that Martin’s character grew up in a black sharecropping family offers quite a few jokes as well.

The Jerk isn’t really my kind of comedy. Martin’s character is ultimately too dopey for me to fully invest in and the film could use more of the earnest heart found in scenes with the black family. What helped me make it to the finish line are some solid supporting performances. Stan Fox made me laugh without trying very hard as the gas station owner who hires Martin’s character, offering him pittance for labor and a crowded storage room to live in. Coen Brothers frequent character actor M. Emmet Walsh is fun as the renegade shooter. But it’s Bernadette Peters as Martin’s ultimate romantic interest who does the most to counter-balance Martin’s mania and ground the movie… that is, as much as a movie like The Jerk could ever possibly be grounded.