A rural deputy sheriff rescues a "damsel in dee-stress" only to find that he's actually separated a protected witness from her FBI escorts in this crude, showcase for redneck humorist Daniel Lawrence Whitney – that's Larry the Cable Guy to you.
Larry Stadler dreams of graduating to law enforcement's big leagues, but his small-town beat offers few opportunities to shine. That is, until the day sultry, nervous-looking stranger Madeleine Dimkowski (Ivana Milicevic) comes into the local diner, surrounded by four menacing men in black. Larry figures the lady is in trouble and spirits her away from her "abductors." Is she grateful? Not in the least, because Larry got the situation all wrong: Madeleine is actually en route to testify at the Chicago trial of her ex, corporate crook Arthur Grimsley (Peter Stormare), and the goons are her FBI minders. No matter: Larry has a hunch that she's safer with him than with senior Agent Alonzo Mosely (Yaphet Kotto) and his crew, and against all odds he's actually right. Mosely is secretly working for Grimsley, and he intends to make sure that she never makes it to the stand. And that's about it for plot, the better to leave ample room for the Cable Guy to spout malapropisms, strip and fire off one liners at the expense of intellectuals, foreigners, liberal celebrities, homosexuals and fancy-pants poseurs who look down their noses at fart jokes.
The film's sophisticated comic conceits range from funny names -- Private Maximum Security (PMS!), Agent Orange – to feeble sight gags like the hissing possum in Larry's glove compartment and the subtle self-referentiality of naming Kotto's character after the FBI agent he played in MIDNIGHT RUN (1988). The unfortunate supporting cast includes Jenny McCarthy as Larry's shotgun-toting girlfriend, Eric Roberts as the head of Grimsley's personal security firm and Joe Mantegna as a mincing medico Rondog "Doc" Savage. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
