Review of Witless Protection (2008) by Ismael S — 02 Jun 2009

Witless Protection, starring that Blue Comedy Tour guy, Larry the Cable Guy. I believe this is Larry's (real name is Daniel) third film to debut, and could perhaps be his biggest failure, thus far.

I intially didn't want to even see this movie, but for some reason I did. I saw his first two films, 'Health Inspector' and 'Delta Farce' and I thought they were alright, the better one being Delta Farce, but this one just doesn't compare to the others, not that his others were global phenomenons.

Before I get to explaining why this movie failed, I'll give you the plot, and all the other stuff. Ok, Larry plays a small town sheriff's deputy with dreams of becoming a great FBI agent, but as always, he decides to prove himself in a way that ultimately results in a comedic adventure full of twists and turns; or so that's what the filmmakers want you to believe.

While having his favourtive drink at the local diner, he spots a lady who he believes is being kidnapped and decides to take action, believing that his behavior will grant him an opportunity with the big guys.

He soon discovers though, that the lady he 'rescued' is a little bit more Federally important than just a damsel in distress. Ok, so this is a very unoriginal plot, I've seen it in thousands of movies.

'Get Smart' is one, 'Austin Powers' is another, and notice, all of the movies I've mentioned are 'secret agent/ comedy' films, which is exactly what this movie tries to be.

The plot is very thin, and although it begins to thicken halfway through the movie, it ultimately fails in taking off. The plot had a lot of potential, but the filmakers decided to take this movie into the path of comedy that relies too heavily on chezzy one liners and horrible acting.

There were some moments that could have been intelligently protrayed, but the movie suffered from horrible filmmaking. Let me explain myself about the horrible filmmaking, there are some scenes where Larry decides to communicate with his pursuers through a phone.

Now when he does this, he's using all of these 'secret code names' and fancy lingo Government stereotype words, but it just fails because of the way he acts it out. He's not the only one either, the actor who is protraying the person on the other end of the phone is doing the exact same thing.

Now I don't know if the director just doesn't know how to tell his actors what he wants them to do, or if the actors are just horrible. Peter Stormare, who is best known for his stint in Prison Break, should be ashamed for having done this movie.

He did a great job on every episode in that series and yet when you see him here, it just seems like he was desperate to grab a few thousand dollars. The camera work for this movie is bad. First off, it seems like they didn't even use a studio camera; more like midlevel camera you buy at Best Buy.

No widescreen at all, which really makes the aspect ratio seem dull (basically it seems like you're not watching a movie because of the cheap quality and clarity). The sound is off, I remember seeing Larry punching somebody, and noticed the KAPOW sound of the punch was just a bit off, it also sounded rather.

....cheap. The fight scene/s are badly choreographed and they tried once again to put a little comedy in there, but it was just too stupid. There are just a countless amount of things I could say about this movie but I don't think there's enough space here on Facebook.

I've pretty much said everything that is absolutely horrible with this movie, so I'll start with the good stuff. Ok, the select few of you who are reading this will ask, if it was so horrible, why did you waste your time watching all of it? I answer to that by saying that the movie had it comedic moments.

Some of which were actaully pretty funny, but most of the time, those 'funny' scenes did nothing to push the movie forward, so they don't really count. The opening scene really made me laugh, and caused me to place the bar for this film pretty high, which turned out to be a mistake.

There was line in specific that really made me laugh, its in the trailer, but that was pretty much it. I remember sitting on the couch watching it, and while there was only 10 or so minutes left, everyone got up and started doing their own thing.

I hate leaving movies period so I stayed, seemed like a waste of time, but I don't totally regret watching this movie. Oh and Jenny McCarthy, yeah that's a total joke, she's barely in the movie.

I think they put her on the front cover to attract an audience. If I could sum up the whole movie into one word, I would say cheap! Cheap jokes, cheap camera work, cheap sound and cheap overall quality.

Stay away from this movie, it might cause even the biggest Larry the Cable Guy's fans to be shut off. A stupid movie, full of horrible movie ingredients, yet there are the occasional moments where the film tends to make you laugh; for that I give it two stars.