Film

The Naked Man (1998)

Director: J Todd Anderson

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

'A Wacky New Comedy From the Co-Creator of Fargo and The Big Lebowski' splurges the video cover, over an appalling shot of what appears to be a skinned Michael Rapaport swinging across a wrestling ring. A chiropractor who moonlights as 'the naked man', Eddie Bliss loves the showmanship of the ring - then his family are gunned down by a psychotic drug-running cripple and his Elvis-lookalike cohort, and something snaps: The Naked Man goes on the rampage, combating evil, and preaching the virtues of 'spinal integrity'. Amazingly, Ethan Coen is credited as co-writer, along with first time director, J Todd Anderson - the Coens' storyboard artist. In as much as the Coens' comedies often play like they've been made up as they gone on, then this is truly Coenesque. It's also dismally unfunny - so unfunny you can imagine a cult audience getting off on it. Certainly I'll treasure the memory of Elvis, hypnotised into believing he's a drug enforcement officer, being shredded by a twin prop plane.

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