NO STARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rated PG-13 for crude and sex-related humor.

Dang, my hand hasn’t been this sore since the first episode of Baywatch! -Deputy Larry Stalder

Admittedly I only suffered a viewing of this movie because my husband begged to rent it.  I enjoy Larry the Cable Guy’s stand up, and his previous film “Larry The Cable Guy” had inadvertent moments of funny to offer.  A few beers and it’s not a half bad movie.  Nonetheless, an entire case of beer wouldn’t have encouraged a moment of laughter from Witless Protection.  As a viewer you know going in this is no Academy Award winning film, and you also know you aren’t going to get Adam Sandler and Mike Myers talent of making successful and good offensive comedies.  You expect the campy overdone mockery of Tremors 2 or 3 and that was what I was looking for.  Each of those were worthy of best picture nominations next to Witless Protection.  In fact there have been adult films made with more of a plot, better soundtrack, and even better acting.

An ordinary guy from a small town plays deputy to a rapidly aging sheriff in a town where very little happens.  Deputy Larry Stalder has dreams and goals of becoming an FBI agent, though reality would deem him the least likely candidate for this job.  His record is a bit of a mess, making incorrect arrests and errors in hopes of making his big bust.  His desire to make his big bust leads him following a group of men in a black Suburban with a woman that Larry is convinced has been kidnapped.  Against the warnings of friends and his particularly attractive girlfriend, he attempts to “rescue” the woman.  He successfully apprehends the girl and escapes the kidnappers.  Or so he thought.  It turns out Larry has taken a woman that was being driven by the FBI to appear in court to testify in an important impending case.  Larry believes the FBI screwed up and this is his chance to shine.  He decides to take the woman in his own protective custody and get her to her court date, but first he must battle many great odds.

The expectation of a complicated plot was not something I imagined would happen, but I also didn’t expect a plot so banal that my two year old could have scripted something more clever.  Honestly, Larry is a funny guy and Jenny McCarthy, while no brilliant actress, is hilarious, so how did the end of every line delivery end up never hitting the punchline?  I’m staggered by it’s ability to be so ineffectual in the funny department.  If a film is going to have no real story and extremely one dimensional character’s, the actors playing them are going to have to be over the top brilliant, and while on their own each of them are, together as a cast the entire group suffered immensely.

There is something tragically wrong with a movie when Larry The Cable Guy is by far the best actor.  I figured Jenny McCarthy to be able to wing it, or Ivana Milicevic, but they were both awkward and uncomfortable.  The worst performance was earned by Agent Orange/ MIB #1.  He’s lines were so forced and his acting so labored I literally held my breath each time he was onscreen hoping his scene would quickly be over.  It was obviously just terrible.

The PG-13 rating is a bit harsh.  Most of the sexual jokes would go over a ten year olds head, but I understand why it was given when jokes involving masturbation are prevalent.  Movies like Witless Protection often lack in many departments but overcome their simplistic nature with silliness, but unfortunately none of the elements that make a movie like this funny or even fun to laugh at how bad it is, never came together.  It was a complete disaster and thus far the worst movie I have seen of 2008. even surpassing the awful Meet The Spartans, which at least offered the occasional laugh.  Unlike Carmen Electra, Jenny McCarthy’s hotness didn’t even offer a saving grace here.  Witless Protection gets no stars.

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