So bad it's good... Corky Romano

Ok, so everyone seems to love our "You Know What's A Good Movie?" series of posts (I'm basing that on the number of hits those posts get).  I wanted to try a new series of posts, this time a bit different.  I want to talk about movies that are so bad, they're actually good, you know what movies I'm talking about.  These posts wont have a connection between them, it's just for kicks.  These kind of movies start out as box office failures, but eventually become cult classics.  In some cases they're so bad, they're successful because of it.  Let's begin with the first movie in our line of posts... Corky Romano. 

The movie was released in 2002 and stars Chris Kattan.  It was his first leading role (unless you count Night at the Roxbury).  The movie co-starred Peter Falk as the head of the Romano crime family.  There are three Romano sons: Peter Berg plays the pretty boy, tough guy, who can't read, classic!  This is before Berg was making 200 million dollar movies like Hancock and the upcoming Battleship.  The second son is played by the great, gone too soon, Chris Penn.  Penn plays the muscle of the crime family, who also happens to be gay, hilarious!  Such a funny and unique way to portray the mob.

Then there's Kattan, he plays the odd man out of this family.  He's a veterinarian who has no business being in the business of crime.  He's a good-hearted, happy-go-lucky kind of guy.  His license plate says "Corkstr" for cryin' out loud.  But when the family calls on him to go undercover and steal back evidence from the cops, Corky agrees.

The movie is funny, to me anyway; but it is so bad.  The situations Corky is thurst into are ridiculous.  For example: he has to sell a gang of white supremacists that he wants to join their crew?  He has to translate between two drug lords who speak two different languages?  The gags are pretty generic and just-don't-work. Remember Blue Streak starring Martin Lawrence and Owen Wilson?  Same concept except Lawrence is a strong enough comedian to carry the load with great support from Wilson.  And that movie wasn't over the top.

That's another problem with this movie; it isn't trying to be a spoof, it's trying to be a bona fide comedy.  Well they spend so much time making fun of gangsters and police, we don't know what to think; and everything is over the top, everything.  Then there's the purely ridiculous; Corky shoots a gun uncontrollably but saves a dog and disarms a perp all at the same time?  C'mon, I have limits as a viewer you know.

Falk, Berg and Penn are so funny in this movie.  It's worth mentioning that any of the three of them are funnier than Kattan in the movie.  The way Berg's character has to hide that he's illiterate is so funny, and is done really well.  Same goes for the "wink wink" moments when we realise Penn's character is gay, awesome.  Falk's in his deathbed and is still telling the three of them to stop fighting, and he does so with power, loved him in this movie.  He has a quote that had me rolling:

My son, he's a fruit and I don't care who knows it.  The other one, he can't read a stop sign, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

 The movie came and went and did very poorly at the box office (23 million sounds better than it really is).  The characters were great, the acting was hilarious (minus Kattan), and the story was unoriginal at best.  I still like the movie and throw the DVD in once every year or so.  What do you think?  Is this movie so bad it's good in your opinion?  Let me know.  I'll try to do more of these as time goes by, suggestions?  Email me and let me know.