New York Times News Service
Sometimes a movie is so awful that the word awful is not up to the task of conveying its awfulness. The awful "InAPPropriate Comedy" is such a movie. It is memorably awful. It is stunningly awful. It is so awful that we are fortunate that "awful" has an adverbial use that means "very" or "extremely." This movie is awfully awful.
The film, directed by Vince Offer and starring some people whose careers, we can hope, ended the moment it opened, is a sketch-comedy collage whose unifying theme is offensiveness. It ricochets among a half-dozen or so bits: a gay Dirty Harry-like character (Adrien Brody); a bigot (Ari Shaffir) who harasses Jews, blacks and Asians; two film critics (Rob Schneider and Michelle Rodriguez) who specialize in pornographic movies with names like "Sushi Mama." Someone poking a tablet computer selects which wretched bit comes next, the source of the "app" affectation in the title.
Some humorists can pull off this type of parody, but the makers of this witless embarrassment aren't among them. The purpose of comedy like this is to call out offensive behavior by putting it under a glaring spotlight, but who needs that today, when homophobes picket at soldiers' funerals, and the Internet provides a forum for any variety of hate speech that real-life racists and bigots can dream up?
So "InAPPropriate Comedy" fails just on the basis of its core idea. But the execution is inept as well, with Offer showing no mastery of comic tone or timing. Bits that start out unfunny (which is to say, all of them) are allowed to just keep going, like a stand-up who is bombing but won't get off the stage.
Awful concept, awful writing, awful delivery. "InAPPropriate Comedy" is, in a word, terrible.
InAPPropriate Comedy
Zero out of four stars.
