Black Sheep (1996)

Directed by Penelope Spheeris. Starring Chris Farley, David Spade, Tim Matheson, Christine Ebersole, Timothy Carhart, Gary Busey, Bruce McGill, Grant Heslov, Boyd Banks. [PG-13]

Lazy comic misfire is, by most accounts, a production that almost no one involved wanted to be a part of…and it shows. Farley does his bull-in-a-china-shop routine as Washington state gubernatorial candidate Matheson’s embarrassment of a brother, committed to helping his sibling become governor but fouling up at every turn. Worse, he’s a perpetual screw-up who’s not lovable, just loud, boorish, and stupid. (It doesn’t matter how well-meaning he is deep down; no one this socially-humiliating should ever assist in public service.) He throws himself into the witless material so forcefully, so desperately, it just becomes sad, and there’s no spark or flow in the ill-defined buddy-buddy rapport he generates with co-star Spade, who plays a smug twerp in his early scenes, then loses almost all semblance of personality and just becomes a blank foil for Farley’s oafish outbursts. Grunge band Mudhoney appear (and perform) as themselves.

18/100