SummarySteve Martin, in his first starring motion picture, plays Navin Johnson, adopted son of a poor black sharecropper family, whose out-there inventions lead him from rags to riches and beyond. Along the way, he falls for a lady motorcycle racer, survives a series of screwball attacks by a deranged killer, and becomes a success by inventing the "Opti... Read More
Directed By:Carl Reiner
Written By:Steve Martin, Carl Gottlieb, Michael Elias
The Jerk
Metascore
Generally Favorable
61
User score
Generally Favorable
7.0
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Metascore
Generally Favorable
43% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
57% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
100
Loud and ludicrous, The Jerk is a strong contender for the funniest film of all time.
80
By turns funny, vulgar and backhandedly clever, never more so than when it aspires to absolute stupidity. And Mr. Martin, who began his career with an arrow stuck through his head, has since developed a real genius for playing dumb.
User score
Generally Favorable
65% Positive
15 Ratings
15 Ratings
35% Mixed
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
Sep 24, 2024
8
Steve Martin famously aimed for a laugh on every page of The Jerk's script, and he just might have hit the mark. There's no reason for this to work as well as it does - it's intentionally stupid, from the ridiculous opening lines ("I was born a poor black child") to the absurd rags-to-riches-to-rags climax ("all I need is this lamp") - but man, does it succeed in spite of itself. Sheer quotability is partially to thank, as I just touched upon. The film is swamped with riotously good lines, perfectly timed and delivered; an extra-long highlight reel of endearingly dumb quips. Martin himself also elevates the picture, oafishly stumbling through a world that seems tailor-made to take advantage of his type. He's great on his own, the eternally optimistic naïve kid (with shockingly white hair) whose pure nature leads him to believe a crazed would-be assassin is deliberately blowing holes in nearby oil cans and not just missing his target, but he's even better when he gets together with Bernadette Peters. She's just as simple-minded as he is, which makes them doubly gullible but also almost unbearably sweet together. The pair's sudden break from zaniness to share a uke-and-voice duet on a darkened beach is a charming touch, topped by a note-perfect visual **** punch that instantly reminds us what we're watching. As a couple, they're thoroughly silly but also capable of toying with real emotional depth; not an easy balance to strike. The Jerk might not be as potent today as it was forty years ago - comedy has changed quite a bit since 1979 - but it's still astonishingly efficient, loaded with sizzling bits and punchlines, and tremendously influential. Consider it a more innocent, but no less hilarious, predecessor to Dumb and Dumber. A personal favorite.
Aug 9, 2019
6
Bizarre and mostly hit and miss for me. I guess one has to be a fan of Martin's particular style of humor and it just really wasn't my cup of tea. It got a chuckle or two out of me in any case.
70
The Jerk is a kind of post-psychedelic Jerry Lewis movie -- Broad, dirty and juvenile, but definitely hip to its own dumbness. Half the jokes fall flat on their face, but when they score they're laugh-out-loud funny. Almost invariably, the best routines are non sequiturs -- off-the-wall riffs where Martin fixates with dopey brilliance on a subject that has nothing to do with the plot. [17 Dec 1979]
60
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.
50
Director Carl Reiner has put it together so that the character (hardly) ever becomes boring, and the Martin-Carl Gottlieb-Michael Elias screenplay has just enough genuinely witty moments to keep the story rolling past its flat parts. What more can anyone say? If you like Steve Martin, you'll love this movie. If you don't, you'll laugh sometimes but wish you'd gone elsewhere. [17 Dec 1979]
50
The title truly lives up to the character.
40
For my taste a little bit of Steve Martin goes a long way. Moreover, a rickety vehicle like The Jerk is apt to wear out as aspiring comic star's welcome in one swift stroke.
Aug 4, 2018
6
The life, career, and filmography of Steve Martin is something I've regrettably developed a blind spot for throughout my lifetime. And with this first step -- my viewing of "The Jerk" -- it appears as though I've got quite the journey ahead of me. This is a funny movie. Not necessarily a perfect or even consistent comedy, but funny overall. I definitely laughed out loud a few times, chuckled a health amount, and had a smile on my face nearly all throughout. And though the movie's narrative may come off as a bit haphazard on occasion, the end product is still just about worth the watch.
Feb 27, 2020
5
Steve Martin was funny but I found the film very disjointed and the comedy felt dispersed.
