Jack Black and Steve Zahn in "Saving Silverman."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a: Stars: Jason Biggs Director: Dennis Dugan Rated: PG-13, with gross humor and innuendo Length: 90 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(February 9, 2001) -- If you stock a comedy with nothing but stupid, unsympathetic losers, how can the movie ever be a winner?

Perhaps that's why the creators of Saving Silverman revert to sophomoric gags and gross-out humor, despite a promising screwball premise.

A budding romance threatens a trio of male friends. When Darren Silverman (Jason Biggs) agrees to marry the domineering Judith (Amanda Peet), his long-time buddies scheme to wreck the affair before anyone says "I do."

Steve Zahn and Jack Black, who play the friends, are funny when they have the right material. Here, they don't.

Director Dennis Dugan and his screenwriters do little to develop the premise beyond a superficial, juvenile plot that would be rejected for an Archie comic book.

They don't even try to make the romance plausible. There's nothing in either the milquetoast Silverman or the dominatrix Judith to make one fall for the other; not even sex, as you'll see.

Judith explains herself with "Darren is my puppet, and I'm his puppet master." I don't think Silverman could explain himself, even if given the chance.

Judith also abhors Silverman's coarse friends, who act like Animal House fraternity pledges. And she hates the three men's adoration of singer Neil Diamond.

(This silly sidelight is probably just an excuse to have Diamond show up in a cameo to save the day.)

Silverman's inane buddies kidnap Judith, and then recruit an old high school girlfriend (Amanda Detmer) to try to tempt him. Typical of the film's cheap jokes, she's studying to be a nun.

But that's nothing. Before Silverman has run its course, we get to see the boys' former high school football coach use a residential lawn for a bathroom.

The coach is played by R. Lee Ermey (of Full Metal Jacket), who looks mighty embarrassed. After all, he began his acting career with Stanley Kubrick.

Even worse, Judith demands that Silverman get plastic surgery -- butt cheek implants -- and we're forced to watch the bloody operation.

Lacking the imagination to pursue the film's fertile premise, the creators deal the gross-out card. (When I checked Dugan's credits, it became clear: He directed Adam Sandler in Big Daddy and Happy Gilmore.)

However, Dugan's lame-brain approach to movie humor is more pronounced -- and pretentious -- when it's applied to classic romantic comedy elements.

By approaching an adult situation with a junior high school movie mentality, Saving Silverman echoes the style of the just-released, also sophomoric Head Over Heels.

But Heels, at least, generates some humor with its fashion-world satire -- and had a sympathetic central character.

There's absolutely no saving Silverman.