The Plot:
Like a pork belly Pee Wee Herman, Larry the Cable Guy lives in his own insular world of skidmarks, atomic flatulence, personal filth and retarded next door neighbors. Still, he manages to hold down a job as the world's most unprofessional health inspector, letting local restaurateurs slide on the little things so he feels guiltless when they screw up royally. Larry's boss hates this kind of goofball glad-handing, and assigns Larry a partner, the seemingly sexless Amy Butlin. Their first case? Crack a series of high profile food poisonings at local five star eateries. The crimes appear to be tied to a local food competition and a large cash prize. As Larry and Amy stumble around trying to decipher the identity of the culprit, our hapless health inspector falls equally hard into a relationship with the shy, skitterish Jane Whitley. She thinks he's cute. He thinks she the closest thing to a female he's had in a very long time. With the cooking tournament just a few days away, Larry must look through the laundry list of clues and the relative rogue's gallery of suspects and come up with a conclusion. Otherwise, the only thing he'll be inspecting is a weekly unemployment check.

The DVD:
When is a movie not a movie? When it's a semi-storyboarded excuse for a stand up act called Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector. It's a good thing our lead wasn't some manner of comedy checker; he'd still be looking for some substantive laughs in this rancorous armpit of a motion picture. Any attempted rib tickler that can't get fart jokes right deserves to turn in it's whoopee cushion certification - though it's not for lack of trying. No, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector has more barking spider asides than a tri-county collection of middle schools. As a matter of fact, flatulence is actually a major plot point here. Since the story revolves around a conspiracy to poison the cuisine at several restaurants in the no name burg where Larry "works", intestinal distress, and the resulting rectal gas, is more or less a given. It's the methane-based evidence of 'foul' play. So if you're the filmmaker forced onto this project because of some sort of karmic kickback, you need to get your poots right. Sadly, first time feature filmmaker Trent Cooper can't make his frequent russet gussets sing with toiler humor hilarity. Instead, the butt trumpet gags are just like the rest of the movie's mediocre script – bland, dull and incredibly derivative.

Granted, there's not much one can do with Larry's good old boy as Baby Huey routine. He's an odd sort of comic, trading in the obvious clichés of his truck stop lounge act persona. He mixes the intolerant (lots of homophobic jibes here) with the incongruent (jokes that attempt to transcend his redneck retardation and say something smart) to form a kind of pipefitter's paradox. On the one hand, you can sense that Larry is keener than the material he is manipulating. No one, save for maybe Junior Samples, ever got famous on sheer unadulterated and untarnished stupidity alone. But when he tries to force the imbecilic, when he moves from being charmingly dumb to purposefully dim, it comes across as horrifying and very hypocritical. One of the reasons his fellow farm hand funnyman, the dapper and drunk Ron White, works so well as an entity is that, even with some apparent gimmicks, White doesn't deny who he is. He plays the scotch swilling antebellum asshole perfectly. But all throughout his act, and his feature film debut, you can see Larry struggling to get a handle on who he is. Sometimes, he finds the tainted truth inside the white trash trailer park persona. But at other times, he's just making up double entendre labels for everyday items ('oyster catcher', 'personal pillow cases') and cracking on gender and/or sexual proclivity.

As a result, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector doesn't try very hard, which means it doesn't have very far to fall. The supporting cast frequently looks lost, especially Joe "Pants" Pantoliano as a perverted mayor, and Iris Bahr as Larry's manly female assistant, Amy Butlin. In fact, there are moments where you find yourself asking, "what did Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) from the Back to the Future movies actually see in this slop", or "when did Joanna Cassidy shapeshift and BECOME a Blade Runner replicant (this is one woman with a plastic surgery malpractice suit in the making). While the script does seek to give them some manner of dimension, their real roles are as punching bags for Larry's lamentable riffs. Even clever comedian Bruce Bruce is reduced to playing an overweight straight man to the constantly chattering star. As a lead in general, Larry is likable enough (his turn in Cars was very effective) and he doesn't come across as amateurish or out of his league. But no matter how hard they try to fool us, Larry is not an actor, nor a leading man style lover. His scenes with Grounded for Life's Megyn Price are uncomfortable in the their lack of chemistry. It would be easier for Larry to play an unlucky loser with the ladies than a man who tries to sweet talk gals while he's holding in his explosive diarrhea (yeah, there's a scat-based set piece here as well).

In the end, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector is a movie that requires too large an amount of the suspension of disbelief to actually work. We are never informed how this mild mannered moron became a government worker, how he manages to keep his job, and how he's got any kind of career competency, considering how outrageously illiterate he acts. Even in its ancillary moments, this is a movie that demands a lot of us. We are simply supposed to accept that Larry's girlfriend has a mother that's just as rude and crude as he is. We are supposed to laugh when longtime stand-up reference point, Larry's semi-retarded adult neighbor Donnie, shows up to do some handi-capable slapstick. As the plot putters along toward it's Iron Chef inspired ending (how strange is that, especially from a piece of pure hicksploitation) we marvel at how someone so seemingly brainless can end up cracking a nefarious case of multiple food poisonings. Turns out, we just have to go with the flawed flow and wait for Larry to figure things out and "Git-R-Done". While you may find yourself shamefully laughing at a line or two in this otherwise unfunny fracas, the overall experience will be like an evening at a franchise titty bar doing Boone's Farm shooters. It may seem pleasant enough at the time, but you'll regret it deeply come the morning after.

The Video:
Paramount puts out a decent technical presentation for this otherwise direct-to-DVD level film. The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen image is clean and colorful, with lots of disturbing details (Larry's hairy ass crack, Ms. Cassidy's nip and tuck terrors) in easily discernible view. In addition, a 1.33:1 full frame version is an available option, in keeping with the core audience's preferred aspect ratio needs. Director Trent Cooper is not about to win any awards for his unimaginative, barebones compositions, but at least the movie looks professional. For fans of the title comic, that should be all the digital depth they need.

The Audio:
On the sound side, the Dolby Digital Stereo is basic and bland. In either the non-directional 5.1 or the duo channel sameness of the 2.0 surround, this is not an overwhelming aural experience. About the only thing that stands out in this otherwise nominal sonic effort is the odd title song, which actually tries to turn Larry's comedy routines into alt-country rock lyrics. Git-R-…out of here!

The Extras:
A trailer and a semi-enjoyable EPK. That's it. No Larry-laced commentary, or scholarly documentary dissecting the "Cable Guy" persona and its connection to the decline and fall of western civilization. Instead, we get a bunch of actors doing their very best sincerity bit, proclaiming Larry's comedic 'genius' and their desire to work within this "hilarious, laugh out loud" script. Talk about your phony baloney puff pieces.

Final Thoughts:
While all comments lead to a clear call of Skip It, this critic is going to go out on a limb and predict that, just like Jim Varney and his Ernest P. Worrell character, Larry the Cable Guy will become a kind of cult like guilty pleasure. Film fans who should know a heck of a lot better while suddenly cotton to this cow tipper and get a kind of corrupt glee out of laughing at this Confederate flag waving wanker. It has some incredibly lame but definitely quotable dialogue, and there is just enough arcane swagger to make the movie resonate beyond its barebones vanity project paradigms. Therefore, a rating of Rent It will be offered. This doesn't change the fact that, when push comes to shove, Larry is the lowbrow lesser of the Blue Collar Comedy crew. But he's an endearing kind of rube, a stereotype just looking for the right vehicle to propel him to unexplainable superstardom. Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector won't be that Red State rocket to the big (screen) time. He's still stuck in stand-up land for now.

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