Dirt (2001)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Junior (Michael Covert) and Scooter (Tracy Fraim) are dimwit brothers in West Texas. Their father was a meanie, but he died long ago, and Mama took good care of her boys. Now adults, the siblings have just buried Ma out in the desert near their home. Who is going to mother them now? These intellectual midgets don't hold jobs and have never cooked or cleaned. So, what's the solution? First, the duo tries picking up a hooker (Jennifer Tilly) who assures them she will take care of them. After the money exchange, Ms Hook slips out the bathroom window. Junior and Scooter are miffed. On the next go- round, the brothers try kidnapping a lovely grocery clerk, DeDe (Tara Chocol) with mixed results. At first, she's terrified of course, but she's been looking for a way to leave her abusive sheriff hubby, Vincent (Patrick Warburton). So, she will agree to be a housemaid for them if the sibs will help rescue her darling baby from Vince's clutches. They do. Now, the oddest family is sticking together in their remote home. But, more complications arise as the wife beating sheriff is hot on their trail and a sweet-but-stupid bank clerk, Margaret, falls for Scooter. Out in the lovely but harshly barren West Texas landscape there is turmoil! Perhaps the title is a giveaway, ha, for a less than highbrow movie but dummies can be charming and fun. All the players here, not well known, are talented and funny. Likewise, the desert setting is intriguing and lovely while the costumes, script, and lively direction are made to measure. No, folks down in Texas may not like the depiction of dimwits in their great state but if they are smart, they will laugh along with the rest of the movie audience.

Dirt. Dumb. Dumber.The three dastardly D's.A masterpiece.Only the shallow would view inbreeding, rape, beatings, gun toting alchoholics as less than pure entertainment. With today's hypocritical political correctness brought to the extreme edge of what can be swallowed, this is a refreshing breath of foul air.If inbred country beer-swilling southern Americans well armed that just lost their mommy looking for the perfect whore-cook-mommy-nanny not make you run home with this video then I give up.I would stand in line (like I do for a Céline Dion concert) for a week if need be to watch this one more time.Utopia on screen.Run.UTP in Montréal.

I love this film. It has a meandering and unrealistic plot and was shot on a shoestring budget but, man...I love this film. It's not a perfect film, it may not even be a good film. But its gritty imperfections combine to make it even more emotionally affecting and, well, lovable. There's a dozen things to which I could point and say, "That should have been better" or "That's totally out of place" but, if I were given the option, I wouldn't change a thing (well...the orchestral swells in the last five minutes of the film make my teeth hurt. But, other than that, not a thing!). This is cinema that is authentically and movingly human. Its soul shines irresistibly through the quirky tone and budget constraints.Come on, movie people! License this film and release it in some format so I can see it in a non-film-festival form! Not that film festivals aren't wonderful, but a much larger group of people deserve to see the wonderful human confusion that is Dirt.I love this film.

I also saw this film at The Los Angeles Film Festival, and what a joy! It made me think of the kinds of great films the Coen brothers used to make before people gave them a lot of money. An outstanding example of what a film maker can accomplish with great material, charming actors, and a cinematographer who knows how to shoot a picture, even when you're dealing with a limited budget. This film is full of gun humor without being overtly violent, and yet when it does pull the violence trigger, usually gets laughs instead of blood. Ironically this film also delivers a very real emotional punch. The best American films always deliver their heros in the end with some sort of salvation, and this film doesn't disappoint. It's not conventional, but definitely leaves you feeling good about the human condition and the possibilities that love can bring, even in the most diverse ways. A true gem, it will be a sad statement on the state of Hollywood if some company doesn't give this flick a theatrical release so audiences everywhere can embrace it.