While trawling the IMDb trivia in a desperate attempt to distract myself from the unfunniness onscreen, I was not at all surprised to learn that Corky Romano was written, produced and filmed in a matter of months to avoid the pending writer’s strike.
Other films have guys like Steve Martin. In these films the script simply said ‘now Steve does something funny’, and on the day of filming he would. Chris Kattan might be a funny guy, but he can’t do that.
Other films like Ace Ventura and Wayne’s World generate laughs by placing their eccentric characters into unfamiliar situations. The sole chuckle I gleaned from this film came when Corky was forced to act unlike Corky, when having to give a talk to school kids while accidentally under the influence of cocaine.
Other films would come up with something better than having Kattan play the black sheep of a mod family having to infiltrate the FBI. The Departed did this. The Departed had more laughs than this ‘comedy’.
Other films would move beyond the mobster stereotype. They would rise above making one mob son gay and the other job son breathtakingly stupid for comedic effect. Not Corky Romano, which ends with the ‘accepting’ dad saying “come over here you fruit”.
Ok so many films would settle for having a talented comedic actor bumble, stumble and fumble his way to laughs, Get Smart, The Naked Gun, Vin Diesel in The Fast and the Furious…
Other films settle for being ‘light comedies’. But there is no light here. This is just dim.
Final Rating – 5 / 10. They should have waited for the writers.
