Freddy Got Fingered

Freddy Got Fingered
Theatrical film poster
Directed by	Tom Green
Written by	Tom Green Derek Harvie
Produced by	Larry Brezner Howard Lapides Lauren Lloyd
Starring	Tom Green Rip Torn Marisa Coughlan Eddie Kaye Thomas Harland Williams Anthony Michael Hall Julie Hagerty
Cinematography	Mark Irwin
Edited by	Jacqueline Cambas
Music by	Mike Simpson
Production company	Regency Enterprises
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	April 20, 2001 (2001-04-20)
Running time	89 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$14 million
Box office	$14,333,252

Freddy Got Fingered is a 2001 American comedy film directed, co-written by and starring Tom Green. Some of the scenes feature similar antics to those seen in his own The Tom Green Show and scenes in Road Trip. It is largely built around gross-out and shock humor. Much of the movie was filmed in Southern California and in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Plot

Green plays a 28-year-old slacker/cartoonist named Gordon "Gord" Brody, who is pursuing his ambition to obtain a contract for a TV show. He heads off for Hollywood, and subsequently gets a job in a cheese sandwich factory. He also goes to an animation studio looking for Mr. Davidson (Anthony Michael Hall). He is told that he's out to lunch. Gord makes up a lie that he's a cop and that Mr. Davidson's wife died. He gets the name of the restaurant and quickly heads there to pitch his idea. After being told that his ideas are stupid and make no sense, he decides to move back home and rethink his future. When Gord's father (Rip Torn) questions Gord's life goals, and then proceeds in a fit of rage to destroy Gord's half-pipe, which Gord has spent a whole year building (thereby sending Gord over the edge), he subsequently gets even by having his father arrested on falsified charges of sexual molestation, destroying his parents' relationship and his family's reputation in the process. Gord's Mom ends up dating Shaq. Gord and his Dad end up sewing soccer balls in Kuwait after Gord finally gets a TV contract, based upon his family. The event that convinces Mr. Davidson to give Gord the contract is when Gord's Dad comes into the office during the interview acting psycho.

Throughout the film, vignettes depict Gord's day-to-day activities, such as his sadomasochistic relationship with a paralyzed woman (Marisa Coughlan), and Gord's younger brother's attempts to "go straight" by going to work at a bank. However he is later sent to a home for sexually-molested children wearing a shirt that says "No More Secrets."

Cast

• Tom Green - Gordon "Gord" Brody
• Rip Torn - James "Jim" Brody
• Marisa Coughlan - Betty
• Eddie Kaye Thomas - Frederick "Freddy" Brody
• Harland Williams - Darren
• Anthony Michael Hall - Dave Davidson
• Julie Hagerty - Julie Brody
• Drew Barrymore - Davidson's Receptionist
• Shaquille O'Neal - Shaquille
• Zachary Bogdon - Lubrication Supplier

Production

The theatrically released version of the movie is 89 minutes long and received an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America following requested cuts to tone it down from an NC-17, a rating which Tom Green described as "like porn with murder." As an extra on the DVD release, Green also included a version of the movie which he had edited to secure a PG rating. The PG-rated cut of Freddy Got Fingered is a mere three minutes long with a comedic voice over. Some footage was leaked by the Newgrounds website before the movie was released. Years later, Tom Fulp, owner of Newgrounds, confirmed that the leak was a publicity stunt.

Critical response

In a damning review, film critic Roger Ebert wrote that the film may more likely be seen one day as a "milestone of neo-surrealism" than funny. In this memorable scene, Gord ties sausage to his fingers, plays the piano poorly, and chants: "Daddy, would you like some sausage?"

Upon its original release, the film received overwhelmingly negative reviews, many considering it one of the worst films of all time. The Toronto Star created a one-time new rating just for Freddy Got Fingered, giving it "negative one star out of five stars." CNN's Paul Clinton called it "quite simply the worst movie ever released by a major studio in Hollywood history" and listed the running time as "86 awful minutes."

Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film a rare zero-stars rating, listed it as one of his most hated films of all-time, and described the film's humor thus:

This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels...The day may come when Freddy Got Fingered is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny.

This film currently has 11% on Rotten Tomatoes, where its critical consensus states:

Unfavorably comparing it with such infamously bad titles as Battlefield Earth, a significant number of critics are calling Tom Green's extreme gross-out comedy the worst movie they have ever seen.

Later, in his review of the film Stealing Harvard, Ebert wrote:

Seeing Tom Green reminded me, as how could it not, of his movie Freddy Got Fingered, which was so poorly received by the film critics that it received only one lonely, apologetic positive review on the Tomatometer. I gave it—let's see—zero stars. Bad movie, especially the scene where Green was whirling the newborn infant around his head by its umbilical cord. But the thing is, I remember Freddy Got Fingered more than a year later. I refer to it sometimes. It is a milestone. And for all its sins, it was at least an ambitious movie, a go-for-broke attempt to accomplish something. It failed, but it has not left me convinced that Tom Green doesn't have good work in him. Anyone with his nerve and total lack of taste is sooner or later going to make a movie worth seeing.

Film critic Leonard Maltin shared Ebert's view of the film:

Instantly notorious word-of-mouth debacle became the poster child for all that's wrong with movie comedy. Gags include the maiming of an innocent child and a newborn spun around in the air by its umbilical cord—compounded by the almost unimaginable ineptitude with which they're executed.

Resurgence

Freddy Got Fingered began to see more positive praise over time. One of the few notable critics who gave it a generally positive review was A. O. Scott of The New York Times, who compared the film to conceptual performance art. Critic Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club gave the film a rave review in his "My Year Of Flops" column where he partially fulfilled Ebert's prediction, comparing it to the work of Jean-Luc Godard and calling the film "less as a conventional comedy than as a borderline Dadaist provocation, a $15 million prank at the studio's expense" adding "it's utterly rare and wondrous to witness the emergence of a dazzlingly original comic voice. I experienced that glorious sensation watching Fingered...I can honestly say that I've never seen anything remotely like it" and rated it a "Secret Success" In a later column, Rabin stated "I was a little worried that I'd catch flak for giving mad props to a film as divisive and widely reviled as Freddy Got Fingered. So I was relieved to discover that every single commenter agreed with my assessment of it... It also didn't escape my attention that my Freddy post was the most commented-upon post in the history of My Year Of Flops by a huge margin." Comedian Chris Rock listed Freddy Got Fingered as one of his favorite movies on his website.

As of 2010 the film has received a large cult following. In Tom Green's interview on The Opie and Anthony Show, host Opie noted the film had begun to be regarded as 'one of the funniest movies ever made'. Green noted the film had sold a million units, and that he wished to make a director's cut due to a lot of footage that did not make the original cut. Green notes that he was not trying to make The Jazz Singer and that many fans of the movie shout out scenes from the film regularly at his stand-up performance.

Unreality Magazine featured the movie in its list of "10 Hilarious Movies That Received Terrible Reviews", noting that critics' taste in comedies tend not to reflect the general public.

Vadim Rizov for IFC.com wrote an article titled "In defense of Freddy Got Fingered". He calls the film one of the great underrated comedies of the decade and says the film would go on to do better if it was released today, comparing it to the successful Adult Swim series Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

The film received eight Golden Raspberry Award nominations in 2002 including Worst Supporting Actor (Rip Torn) and Worst Supporting Actress (for both Julie Hagerty and Drew Barrymore). It won in the categories of Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Tom Green), Worst Director, Worst Screenplay and Worst Screen Couple (Green and "any animal he abuses"). In acknowledgment of the critical consensus regarding the film's merits, Green appeared at the ceremony to accept his awards, saying:

I'd just like to say to all the other nominees in the audience: I don't think that I deserve it any more than the rest of you. I'd like to say that; I don't think that it would be true, though.

In February 2010, it was announced that Freddy Got Fingered was nominated for "Worst Picture of the Decade" for the 30th Golden Raspberry Awards. It lost to Battlefield Earth.

Box office

The movie had a budget of $14 million, and grossed $14,333,252 domestically in 59 days in North American cinemas. The film earned $24,300,000 from DVD sales, and was among the top 50 weekly DVD rentals chart. Green has stated in a few interviews in 2010 that DVD sales have been growing many years later and that there was a cult following. Green has also stated that he would like to do a "Director's Cut" DVD release of the film in 2011 to celebrate the 10 year anniversary.

Director's Cut release

On March 9, 2010 on Loveline, Tom Green officially announced that a "Director's Cut" will be released. On a December 2010 answer to a fan question on his website tomgreen.com, Green said that there was no progress as of yet in regards to the director's cut.

See also

• List of American films of 2001
• List of films considered the worst

External links

• Freddy Got Fingered at IMDb
• Freddy Got Fingered at Rotten Tomatoes
• Freddy Got Fingered at Metacritic
• Freddy Got Fingered at Box Office Mojo
• Mirror of the Official Web Site hosted on archive.org