Movie 43 (2013) Review

By Ryan Pollard

Before delving into the mess that is Movie 43, be warned: Anyone who thinks it looks good or plans to see it, shame on you, shame on you. Movie 43 is the latest product from the mind of Peter Farrelly, and the plot is that a group of young kids are searching for filth on the Internet (in the US version, it’s Dennis Quaid pitching movie ideas) and in the process of finding the most banned movie ever made, they find a series of skits and sketches, all involving famous people including Richard Gere, Kate Winslet, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Uma Thurman, and so on. Now, the content in these sketches can be barely described without overstepping the lines of taste and decency, because there is a massive gross-out factor involving excreta, bodily functions and much more that can’t even be explained in this review. In the trailer for Movie 43, there was a tagline that said, “Once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it”, which sadly was true. But, most of all, there’s a line in the film where Kate Bosworth says, “Just when I thought it couldn’t get more offensive”, and boy did she turn out to be right because I must’ve lost track of the number of people – sane, sentient, open-minded people – who should’ve been offended by Movie 43. There have been some films that have been considered being grotesque, but people will struggle to think of one MORE grotesque than Movie 43.

It is, in every way, an evil-minded, bad, and profoundly depressing, indictment of the way in which the modern movie-industry works. You just sit there thinking, “Is it me, or is everyone in the cinema taking a collective breath and thinking as you’re watching it, “you can’t really have made this film. You really cannot have sat in script meetings and decided this was a good idea.”” This was heavily echoed heavily by many other magazines and newspapers. All one stars. All saying exactly the same things, that there is no pit deep enough in the world to dispose of every single copy of this film. In the 1980’s, video-nasties like Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Apocalypse and The Last House On The Left, were slaughtered by people who claimed that the problem with these types of films was that they were a danger to society because they make everyone into bad, violent people. No they don’t! Films like Movie 43 make everyone into bad, violent people, because they are so putrifyingly poor that you sit there feeling your life force being sucked out through your ears and into your seat, and that’s when evil thoughts of destruction start coming in. It is literally a film that is bad for the entire world!

Verdict: It’s not as terrible as Exorcist 2: The Heretic or Speed 2: Cruise Control; AKA the worst films ever made, but it is on a par with Sex Lives of the Potato Men. IT. IS. EVIL.