Dirty Work is a 1998 comedy buddy film starring Norm Macdonald and Artie Lange, and directed by Bob Saget. In the film, long-time friends Mitch (Macdonald) and Sam (Lange) start a successful revenge-for-hire business, and try to earn money for heart surgery for Pops (Warden). All goes well until they must do a dirty job for an unscrupulous businessman. In order to be paid, and expose their deadbeat customer, the pair hatch an outrageous revenge scheme of their own.
The film was the first starring vehicle for Macdonald and Lange, and the first feature film directed by Saget (he had directed a TV-movie drama on ABC one prior to this). One year before, Saget had left his long-running role as host of America's Funniest Home Videos to begin a directing career.
The film received broadly negative reviews from critics, and received low box office returns. However, it has since become a cult favorite, due partially to Artie Lange's since-increased popularity on The Howard Stern Show where the film is sometimes mentioned in often unflattering terms.
Plot
Growing up, friends Mitch Weaver (Norm Macdonald) and Sam McKenna (Artie Lange) are taught to not "take crap from anyone" by Sam's hard-nosed dad Pops McKenna (Jack Warden). To that end, the pair get a bully arrested by planting a gun on him, and catch a kid-fondling crossing guard in the act with glue.
In their adult lives, after losing 14 jobs in 3 months and getting dumped by his girlfriend, Mitch moves in with Sam and Pops, who then has a heart attack. In the hospital Pops confides that he is also Mitch's father, due to the swinging lifestyle of their parents. Even though Pops' heart is failing, the gambling-addicted Dr. Farthing (Chevy Chase) will only raise him on the transplant list if he is paid $50,000 to save him from his bookie. Mitch and Sam get jobs in a movie theater with an abusive manager (Don Rickles), and exact their revenge by showing "Men In Black (Who Like To Have Sex With Each Other)" to a packed house. The other workers congratulate them and tell them they should open their own business.
Mitch and Sam open "Dirty Work", a revenge-for-hire business. Mitch falls for a woman named Kathy (Traylor Howard) who works for a shady used car dealer (David Koechner). After publicly embarrassing the dealer during a live TV commercial, the duo exacts increasingly lucrative reprisals for satisfied customers until they interfere with unscrupulous local property developer Travis Cole (Christopher McDonald). Cole tricks them into destroying "his" apartment building (actually owned by Mr. John Kirkpatrick, the landlord), promising to pay them enough to save Pops. Afterwards, Cole reneges, revealing that he is not the owner, and that he had them vandalize the building so that he could buy it cheaply, evict the tenants (including Kathy's grandmother), and build a fancy new opera house. Unknown to Cole, Mitch's "note to self"[1] tape recorder captures this confession.
Mitch and Sam plot their revenge on Cole, using the tape to set up an elaborate trap. Using skunks, an army of prostitutes, homeless men, a noseless friend (Chris Farley), brownies with hallucinogenic additives, and Pops, they ruin the opening night of Don Giovanni, an opera sponsored prominently by Cole. With the media present, Mitch plays back Cole's confession over the theater's sound system. Cole sees that his public image is being tarnished and agrees to pay the $50,000. In the end, Cole is punched in the stomach, arrested and jailed, his dog is raped by a skunk, and Mitch gets the girl. Dr. Farthing overcomes his gambling habit but is beaten to death by bookies anyway.
Cast
Cameo appearances included
This was Farley's last-released film appearance. Former SNL writer Jim Downey and former SNL writer/performer Fred Wolf appeared as homeless men. Both writers have collaborated frequently with Macdonald and Sandler.
Production and Release
Filmed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and at Wycliffe College there, the film was produced for an estimated $13 million[2]. American domestic gross was just over $10 million. No ads for the film were shown on NBC until a week after the film's release.
During his first ever interview on The Howard Stern Show on September 18, 2008, co-star Chevy Chase discussed the film's production and release with Artie Lange. According to Chase, he was impressed by the original script's raunchy, R-rated, "over the top" tone (particularly a filmed but ultimately cut gag involving Macdonald and Lange delivering donuts that had been photographed around their genitals) and went so far as to beg Macdonald to not allow any changes. However, the studios insisted on a PG-13 rating and rescheduled the film's release from February to Summer, where it fared poorly against blockbusters like Godzilla.
MGM released a DVD of the film in August 1999.
Reception
The film received mostly negative critical reviews; The film has a 17% critic rating at Rotten Tomatoes.[3] On co-star Artie Lange's stand-up comedy DVD, It's The Whiskey Talkin', an audience member asks him to sign his copy of Dirty Work, he does so and then gives the fan ten dollars, saying "you don't see Ben Affleck doing that for Gigli!" Lange then mentions that the review in his home town paper, The Star Ledger, said that he "had all the charm of a date rapist," to which Macdonald replied (in a sincere attempt to cheer him up) "that's a lot better than saying you have the charm of a regular rapist! A date rapist still has to get a date!" Despite the bad reviews the film became a cult favorite among many.
Trivia
- On the October 12, 2006 Howard Stern radio show, Bob Saget recounted stories from behind the scenes with Artie Lange, and Stern revealed that he turned down the role of Satan in the movie because he "just didn't get it."
- The Dirty Work business phone number is "555-0187," a fictitious number used later on Saturday Night Live.[4]
- In the scene where Mr. Hamilton (Rickles) berates Mitch and Sam at length, Rickles ad-libbed personal insults at Lange ("baby gorilla", seen in the film) and Macdonald ("How you got this movie, I'll never know", seen in outtakes during the end credits). Macdonald's laughing at the insults thrown at Lange's character was also real and left in because he couldn't stop.
- Both Norm Macdonald and Artie Lange would go on to act in films about dog-napping, Screwed and Lost & Found.
- In Norm Macdonald's ABC sitcom Norm, Lange guest-starred (and later joined the cast) as Norm's half-brother. Jack Warden also guest-starred once as father of Ian Gomez' character, and fakes a grab at Norm's crotch (as he did in Dirty Work).[5]
- Contrary to popular belief, Artie Lange and Norm Macdonald had not met prior to the production of this film, however they have become close friends in the years since.
Availability
The movie has been made available on VHS, Laserdisc and DVD from MGM Home Entertainment.
References
External links
