The Three Stooges -- Movie Review

The Three Stooges

Directed by Bobby and Peter Farrelly

 

I'll give this a C+.  The plus is for the three actors who played the Stooges:  Sean Hayes (Larry), Chris Diamantopoulos (Moe), and Will Sasso (Curly).  Actually, they get an A.  Those three must have worked very long and hard practicing and honing the antics and characters of the original lunatics, because that's the part of the movie that was good.  They did recreate the look and the spirit of the original Three Stooges very convincingly.  Let's also give an honorable mention to Sofia Vergara (Lydia).   I watched the Three Stooges on a black and white television as a kid growing up in the 1950s and 60s.  I was never a big devotee, but I did enjoy them.  They had a unique, distinctive style that couldn't help but be amusing sometimes.  That hostile, slapstick comedy somehow suited the times.  They were never big on concept or plot, and this movie isn't either.  In fact, I think it tries a little too hard to infuse a story line into the mix.  Too much time is spent on their childhood years in an orphanage run by nuns.  That part of the movie is slow moving and dangerously dull.  But the adult sequences get a lot better and a lot more fun.  The orphanage falls into financial trouble and is being forced to close.  The Stooges try to raise money to save it.  That's the plot.  The financial trouble that the orphanage falls into may be an allusion to the sex scandals and lawsuits that the Catholic church has endured in recent years.  It appears to tie in with the fact that the villain in the film turns out to be a tort lawyer totally devoid of scruples.  He refuses the Stooges' pleas to help save the orphanage and even offers to help them sue it.  There is an oblique implication that the lawsuits against the church that force the closure of orphanages are doing more harm to children than the sex which is being persecuted.  This is not made explicit, but the connection between unscrupulous lawyers, lawsuits, the financial problems of the Catholic Church, and the resultant harm to children might be one of the few subtleties in the film.  There are some interesting twists in the story that tie it all together.  I won't be specific so they will surprise you as you watch.   There seems to be a little bit more sentimentality in this film than I remember from the original Stooges episodes, but perhaps I am forgetting.  The original Stooges were pretty merciless, as I recall, and this film seems a little bit soft around the edges.  They even offer a disclaimer before the credits telling you not to try these stunts at home and show you the harmless rubber mallets and hammers that are used as props -- something most inauthentic and thoroughly modern.  Again, another allusion to the specter of villain lawyers and lawsuits.  There were a few innovations that stayed with me.  The scene in the hospital maternity ward where the Stooges scrap by holding up urinating babies was an unfamiliar novelty, but it was certainly in character.  Also the scene at the golf course where they are selling salmon laid out and flopping around across the fairway grass is memorable for its political incorrectness. If you liked the original Stooges, you will probably like this -- maybe with a few reservations -- but the Three Stooges were always what they were by virtue of the personalities and outrageous antics of the three principals.  There was nothing else to them, and the movie does get this, so I have to call it a success.