Movie 43

Life is full of mysteries. The Loch Ness Monster, the origin of matter, the whereabouts of Lord Lucan…and what on God’s green earth could possibly have possessed a flotilla of major Hollywood stars to debase themselves by appearing in ‘Movie 43’, an comic anthology of staggering unfunniness.

The framing narrative (we use both words extremely loosely) concerns a trio of spotty, porn-obsessed teenage boys on the hunt for the elusive and possibly non-existent ‘Movie 43’, the most vile piece of film ever shot. Unable to track it down, they instead stumble across a fistful of banned material. But instead of featuring terrorist attacks and murky executions (which probably would’ve been funnier, frankly), this shocking restricted footage instead involves pubescent girls getting their first period and Hugh Jackman with testicles growing from his neck.

There are actors we expect to find in this sort of Z-grade nonsense: Justin Long, Johnny Knoxville, Gerard Butler are all present and correct. But Richard Gere? Halle Berry? Emma Stone? Kate Winslet? We can only assume that the film was pitched to them as terribly daring (‘they’ll never expect you to do something like this!’), a way to showcase their ‘fun’ side.

The result is neither daring nor remotely fun: with scenarios ranging from a couple shitting on each other during sex (guffaw!) to a black basketball team afraid of their white opposition (snort!), this is more an endurance test than a movie, a mirthless slog through the lowest gutters of the human imagination.