Its humor is successful and unsuccessful by turns, and although Comedian Carl Reiner is the director, the instinct here is to give most of both credit and blame to Martin.
Comment
02/02/09
The Jerk (1979)
83
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:29
Fresh:24
Rotten:5
Average Rating:6.4/10
Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: Navin Johnson, a none-too-bright white boy raised by a family of black sharecroppers, somehow manages to reach adulthood without ever discovering he was adopted. His parents finally tell him the... [More]
Starring: Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Catlin Adams, Mabel King
Director: Carl Reiner
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Reviews for The Jerk
Top CriticNo review available.
02/02/09
An artless, non-stop barrage of off-the-wall situations, funny and unfunny jokes, generally effective and sometimes hilarious sight gags and bawdy non sequiturs.
02/02/09
Top CriticIf only he could have satisfied himself with this area of expertise, people would still talk of Steve Martin as one of the kings of comic cinema.
02/02/09
No review available.
02/18/07
The comedy runs out of steam when the jerk makes good, but laugh for laugh it's probably a better investment than 10.
06/24/06
The whole thing is uneven and slight, but the highlight moments guilty-pleasure us with the sort of stupid-funny that's 'LOL' quotable afterward.
04/06/06
Steve Martin is at the height of his comic powers in this very un-PC comedy.
01/25/06
While The Jerk is an extremely episodic little movie, that's a malady easily forgiven -- simply because the episodes are so damn funny.
07/31/05
We get the sense at times that the cast and crew arrived at a location, found the script bankrupt of real laughs, and started looking around for funny props.
07/05/05
Top CriticNo review available.
06/18/05
The laughs aren't steady, but they're persistent, and the film moves fast enough to compensate for its unevenness.
05/09/05
Top CriticMartin's one-liners are pretty funny, very dry, and awfully quotable.
02/06/05
No review available.
04/01/04
No review available.
03/19/04
No review available.
03/04/04
No review available.
02/08/04
Pretty funny star vehicle.
11/05/03
No review available.
08/22/03
No review available.
05/01/03
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