The Ringer

It's not that often that I, the Bad Movie Guy, get to actually go to the theatre and see a movie, the DVD boom has been very good to me. And because of the rising cost and the falling quality, I tend to be waaaaaaay more choosy about what I actually lay my hard earned money down to see. So, when I lay down that money and buy my popcorn and then get something that isn't even up to TV movie standards, I think that it's understandable that I get, not just irritated, I get downright angry!

And I think you'll understand that I got more than a little irritated after plunking down aforementioned hard earned dinero to see The Ringer! Now, I like Johnny Knoxville, I think that he's got more talent than he's been able to show and he's generally a likeable guy, but, as they say in the computer business, garbage in, garbage out, and the story here is just that, garbage. You've seen the trailer, so you know the story, Johnny needs money so he and his sleazy uncle decide to 'fix' the Special Olympics...that's it! This is your standard, generic Adam Sandler movie, with Knoxville replacing Sandler. You know from the start that Knoxville's a nice guy, so he'll get the girl and straighten everything out in the end, so you never feel any real involvement in the story, you know where it's going right from the start. The only strong point in the movie is the portrayal of the 'special olympians'. There's no jokes at the expense of the athletes, all the jokes are at the expense of Knoxville, the problem is that there's no real laughs here. Only once in the whole hour and a half did I find myself amused at all! And that's a real problem to me, when I see a comedy, I kind of expect to laugh a little! Silly me! The only people who could laugh at this are young kids, and that seems to be who it's aimed at, but not who it's been marketed to!

So, I'll give The Ringer one lonely cigar, but only for the one lonely laugh I got from it! It's the story of a huge scam, and that scam is that they tried to pass this thing off as something other than a made for TV snooze-fest! So, until the next time we meet, when I'll pass myself off as a guy who watches bad movies, when, in fact, I'm Roger Ebert!!! Until then, remember that the best movies are bad movies!