The Jerk (1979)
Average Rating: 6.6/10
Reviews Counted: 31
Fresh: 26 | Rotten: 5
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 6/10
Critic Reviews: 5
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 2
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 55,179
My Rating
Movie Info
Carl Reiner directs Steve Martin (who co-wrote the script with Carl Gottlieb) in this gag-laden comedy about an idiotic white man, raised by a poor family of black sharecroppers, who doesn't realize he's not black. Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin) is told the horrible truth when he finds himself instinctively tapping his feet to an easy listening tune on the radio, instead of a low-down blues. His mother (Mabel King) tells him he's white and Navin takes to the road (in a World War II bomber
Jan 1, 1979 Wide
Jul 26, 2005
Universal Pictures
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Cast
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Steve Martin
Navin Johnson -
Bernadette Peters
Marie -
Catlin Adams
Patty Bernstein -
Mabel King
Mother -
Richard Ward
Father -
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Bill Macy
Stan Fox -
M. Emmet Walsh
Madman -
Dick O'Neill
Frosty -
Maurice Evans
Hobart -
Helena Carroll
Hester -
Jackie Mason
Harry Hartounian -
Carl Reiner
Himself -
Lillian Adams
Tillie -
Alston Ahern
Bride -
Domingo Ambriz
Father De Cordoba -
Kimberly Cameron
Disco Party -
Alfred Dennis
Irving -
Richard Foronjy
Con Man -
Elizabeth Macey
Disco Party -
Ken Magee
Carnival Rube -
Maurice Marsac
French Waiter -
Lenny Montana
Con Man -
Pepe Serna
Punk No. 1 -
Trinidad Silva
Punk -
Ren Woods
Elvira -
Carl Gottlieb
Iron Balls McGinty -
David Landsberg
Bank Manager -
Fred Lerner
Con Man -
Brownie McGee
Blues Singer -
Sonny Terry
Blues Singer -
Joe Lynn
Voodoo Dancer -
Clete Roberts
Announcer -
Debbie Evans
Stunts -
Frances E. Williams
Grandma Johnson
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The Jerk Trailer & Photos
All Critics (31) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (30) | Rotten (6) | DVD (26)
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.
Top CriticAn artless, non-stop barrage of off-the-wall situations, funny and unfunny jokes, generally effective and sometimes hilarious sight gags and bawdy non sequiturs.
The comedy runs out of steam when the jerk makes good, but laugh for laugh it's probably a better investment than 10.
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.
The laughs aren't steady, but they're persistent, and the film moves fast enough to compensate for its unevenness.
An oddball odyssey so strange, filled with non-sequiturs so funny, and decorated by a romance so sweet, it was an inevitable star-maker.
92 minutes of direct and sweet surrealism
If 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.
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.
Steve Martin is at the height of his comic powers in this very un-PC comedy.
It's classic comedy!
Here, it's almost pure mainlined Martin at his weirdest, but with Carl Reiner in the chair to offer some finesse where needed.
Anarchic, silly and simply an all-out blast...
While The Jerk is an extremely episodic little movie, that's a malady easily forgiven -- simply because the episodes are so damn funny.
Audience Reviews for The Jerk
Super Reviewer
The reason this film seems a little less funny than it should be (though it is a hoot) may just be that it seems to be missing someone. DUMB & DUMBER came fifteen years after this, and it proved to work out much better, because there were two âjerksâ? in the story. With only one âjerk,â? the story seems to be a stand-up act. Like I said, Martin certainly doesnâ(TM)t try to act like a comedianâ"he certainly is one alreadyâ"but the story seems as if broken into uneven segments. Itâ(TM)s like going to a stand-up comedy performance and suddenly becoming part of a skit. The supporting characters appear only for so long, and they always look like a witnessing audience laughing at Martinâ(TM)s character as if heâ(TM)s trying to be funny. (Just look at the expression on the gas station workerâ(TM)s face, for example, upon seeing Nevin open up a bathroom stall, thinking it was the door to the kitchen!) The only characters that seem to recur are Nevinâ(TM)s âfamily,â? who we see in the beginning, in the very end, and occasionally in between reading the postcards they receive from Nevin. Again, Martin is pervasively in character, convincing as a true imbecile, so much that the supporting cast/audience seem to be having a ball in his little situations. That said, THE JERK is certainly funny, but it would have made much more sense as a truncated series of television episodes or shorts.
Super Reviewer
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- Navin Johnson: No, Navin Johnson.
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- Madman: [aiming at Navin at the gas station] Die, gas pumper!
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- Patty Bernstein: [provocatively] You know what I wanna do?
- Navin Johnson: What's that?
- Patty Bernstein: Guess *your* weight. [starts squeezing on him everywhere]
- Navin Johnson: Hey, you're really trying to be accurate!
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- Navin Johnson: Good Lord - I've heard about this - cat juggling! Stop! Stop! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Good. Father, could there be a God that would let this happen?
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- Madman: [points to Navin's name in the phone book] Johnson, Navin R... sounds like a typical bastard.
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- Navin Johnson: [Navin recites some wisdom] Lord loves a workin' man; don't trust whitey; see a doctor and get rid of it.
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