Delta Farce (2007)

Overall rating from 1 to 100: 8

O Masterpiece (95-100)
O Excellent (75-94)
O Good video rental (60-74)
O Merely OK (50-59)
O Pure mediocrity (30-49)
X Medusa: don’t watch (1-29)

Review by Jason Pyles / May 18, 2007

Watching “Delta Farce” is almost as pleasurable as watching a rusty nail slowly pierce your own eyeball, or watching a dog “do its business” on your picnic blanket during lunch, or watching a cat cough up a hairball onto your birthday cake. Yeah, “Delta Farce” is almost that pleasurable — but not quite.

In fact, “Delta Farce” is the worst movie I’ve seen since “Master of Disguise” (2002). I thought I’d peel my own skin off during Dana Carvey’s humorless waste of celluloid. One might point out, “The movie’s title gives you fair warning by using the word ‘farce.’” But this movie isn’t just farce, it’s gravely regrettable.

Larry the Cable Guy (nice name) plays “Larry,” (go figure). He and his two nitwit buddies, Bill (Bill Engvall) and Everett (DJ Qualls), are “weekend warriors” (U.S. Army reservists). Because of a shortage of men for the war on terror in Iraq, these three are activated and put on a plane headed for Fallujah.

However, their plane — which apparently wasn’t “too heavy” when it took off — becomes “too heavy” during a storm, so the pilots drop their military payload of supplies, including a Hum-V which includes the three sleeping stooges.

When they awaken in a desert terrain, the reservists assume they’re in Iraq. But they’re actually in Mexico. So they set off to “liberate the Iraqi people” from insurgents. But these afflicted people are actually Mexicans who have a problem with being robbed by bandits.

Yes, you’re right if you’re thinking, ‘Hey, that sounds a lot like “Three Amigos,” (1986). It’s very much like “Three Amigos” except “Three Amigos” is funny, and you actually like watching Steve Martin, Chevy Chase and Martin Short.

Imagine watching “The Flintstones” (1960) without a laugh track. That’s what “Delta Farce” feels like: It seems as though the actors were told to deliver a joke and wait for the laugh track to kick in. The problem is, there is no laughing on the soundtrack (or in the theater), so these actors deliver a line and wait. Meanwhile, all we hear are crickets. It’s really quite awkward.

I also do not respect the way the filmmakers take both sides on the Iraq War: Most of the movie seems to be a scathing attempt at ridiculing the American occupation in Iraq. Then, inexplicably, the movie turns on its head to give us a “We’re Americans; we have to do the right thing and stay until the job is done” speech. Perhaps the message is that the war in Iraq is a farce, hence the name. Fine, but why send Larry the Cable Guy to deliver that message?

Personally, I don’t want anyone to associate anything about this movie with America. (For some people, there’s Vietnam. For others, it’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But for me, our big shame is “Delta Farce.”)

The only thing I can appreciate, to any degree, is this movie’s tidbit tributes to popular war films like “Patton” (1970), “Apocalypse Now” (1979) and others. Those moments reminded me of happier times when I was watching competent movies.

I used to think I had an unconditional love for cinema. But flicks like “Delta Farce” have shown me otherwise. In short, avoid “Delta Farce” like the plague ... or Medusa.

Directed by C.B. Harding
Larry the Cable Guy / DJ Qualls / Bill Engvall
90 min. Comedy
MPAA: PG-13 (for crude and sexual humor)

Copyright 2007.
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