Going Overboard

Next up is another homoerotic scene between Bob and Shecky, thumbwrestling in his (their?) room. They start arguing about whether Shecky should wear his pink shirt or his green shirt to his next attempt at a "gig." Finally, Shecky decides to wear both (?). Hmm, two guys in sailor suits, thumbwrestling on a bunk bed, working on a cruise ship, and arguing about the merits of pink shirts over green shirts. Nope, no gay here!

While the hapless funnyman assassins continue on their little high seas adventure, arguing about maps and sharing strange feelings with each other, Shecky takes to the deck in another fruitless attempt to entertain the passengers. He bombs, of course, telling jokes about feeding Alka-Seltzer to seagulls and watching them explode. So of course he whines YET AGAIN to the camera about how he isn't funny and is somehow transported to a restaurant that obviously isn't located on the ship with Milton Berle in an embarrassing cameo. Milton gives Shecky a couple of tired old gags to use, which Shecky writes down. Apparently copying other people's jokes is what stand-up is all about. Also whenever Berle says anything, there's a laugh track. He tells Shecky, "there's nothing more important in the world than the power of laughter," collects his paycheck, and leaves. Shecky makes another "look at me I'm in a movie" speech to the camera, says "take my wife please" three times and is teleported back to the ship, in the middle of his act. The audience is just roaring. Apparently none of them have heard "take my wife, please," before or maybe they just think it's funny because there's no way a loser like Shecky ever have a wife to give away in the first place. Strangely, Shecky totally ignores the jokes Berle gave him and tells a string of bad jokes which are even worse than Dickie's, but somehow he manages to get huge laughs and win over the crowd. What the?!? [Watch the video of Shecky's "winning" routine to see what I mean. (561K, Windows Media)]

Then suddenly…

…the two Panamanimaian assassin-terrorists board the ship and start shooting into the air! Yes, there's a huge plot hole that doesn't explain how General Noriega got a copy of the movie and how the assassins found the ship and knew Miss Australia was on it in the first place but… oh, who cares. The movie is almost over!

In the end, Shecky wins over the hearts of the ship's many trolls with the power of crappy stand-up.

The Balki-spawn demand that Miss Australia surrender to them. Actually, they just say stupid gibberish like, "prepare to meet your mayor!" While Shecky and Bob hide in a rowboat, Shecky asks, "Isn't Miss Australia the late Dicky Diamond's girlfriend?" Bob responds, "How would I know, I haven't done any scenes with Dickie Diamond and his girlfriend!" Ziiing! It turns out Miss Australia is hiding in the very same rowboat, the assassins say something about eating fingernails and shitting them out, and Miss Australia gets scared because it took forever for her to grow her nails out. She takes off with Bob and Shecky in tow and a wacky chase ensues. But here's the best part: Shecky's shirt changes from green to pink the entire time! See, that's what he meant by wearing both shirts! In case you missed the "joke," they stop in the middle of the chase to explain it. Way to cover up a continuity error!

After some more Tom chasing Jerry action, they all stop and Miss Australia's accent suddenly becomes very Southern-sounding. She launches into this "I hate being pretty because people think I'm stupid" speech and wishes she was deformed instead. "Being pretty isn't pretty," she complains. Bob of course falls in love with her and they start making out while Shecky spanks it (well, it looks that way, at least). But the assassins interrupt and threaten to kill some floozy if Miss Australia doesn't surrender, so she gives herself up and Shecky and Bob argue like wimps about who's going to save her. Bob goes since he slipped her the tongue. All the while, General Noriega is watching this on TV. [The two assholes from Panama search for Miss Australia (244K, Windows Media)]

Shecky gives this big speech about why he doesn't want to die (it's bad for his career) which leads to another batch of beauty pagent girls talking about heaven. Then Shecky hears Milton Berle's voice, reminding him of the power of laughter, so he saves Miss Australia (whose last request was to sing a terrible song) by telling the assassins he'll put them in a movie and make them famous comedians. "Just look into the camera," Shecky says. So the assassins start telling their bad jokes ("What is invisible and smells like carrots? It's little teenee bunny fart!"), Bob saves Miss Australia, and they immediately get engaged.

Yes, "Going Overboard" really is that painful.

Meanwhile, Dickie Diamond asks God for help, promising never to swear or flick people off if He lets him out of the bathroom. A vague God-like force comes down and opens to door. Dickie escapes and screams, "You stupid motherfucker, you stupid fucks, I'm an atheist!" He climbs up to the deck to find the terrorists telling really, REALLY horrible jokes, tries to get his job back, gets booed, and is thrown overboard (or rather, a really obvious stunt double is thrown overboard). Cut to General Noriega, who unlike most people is still watching this movie. He picks up a gun, shoots the screen, and we fade to black.

Shecky wraps things up, bragging about how he's a hero and a big funny comedian now (when did this happen?) and how everyone lived happily ever after. Except for him since he still doesn't have a girl. Thankfully his whining is interrupted by King Neptune, who introduces Shecky to his daughter SLIMEY (all in caps because he screams it). Slimey is actually not hideous, which is good enough for Shecky, so they kiss on the deck, King Neptune says "have her back at the reef by 11," Dickie Diamond drowns while giving the camera the finger, and the end credits finally roll, complete with the cast dancing in the background. After that, it's back to General Noriega, who holds a kitten and throws a grenade at someone. Sure, why not end it that way!

There's a reason why most low-budget movies are horror films or porn: they're fairly straightforward to direct and the quality of the writing is secondary to the attractiveness of the female cast. You don't see a ton of low-budget comedies because poorly written, unfunny dialogue vomited out of the mouths of nervous first-time actors is excruciatingly painful to watch. "Going Overboard" is no exception to this rule. Even the most die-hard Sandler fans will find themselves flinching, wondering how the hell this guy managed to overcome his severe comedic handicaps and mold himself into a half-way respectable actor (compared to Carrot Top, at least). At this point in his career, just about the only thing Sandler can do is make funny faces at the camera, whine about not being funny, and make even more funny faces. The self-aware "look we're inside a movie" joke beaten to death and buried about midway through, Sandler eats up almost half his screen time droning on and on about how he sucks and isn't funny (and it's true!). And worst of all, when he finally wins over the crowd, the jokes he uses to do so are even worse than Dickie Diamond's and possibly even the Panamaianaimaiaian's! In conclusion, watching "Going Overboard" will make you seasick and ruin your sense of humor forever. Just look what it did to mine!

Each category in the rating system is based out of a possible -10 score (-10 being the worst). The overall score is based out of a possible -50 score (-50 being the worst).

– Kevin "Fragmaster" Bowen (@TwitterHasBannedAllMyAccountsEver)