Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector - PG-13
Common Sense Note
Parents should know that Larry makes fun of people in wheelchairs, women, and gays and lesbians. Cockroaches and flies are shown in food. There's lots of toilet humor and sexual objectification of women.
Families can talk about the appeal of comedies like this that mock people who are different than you. Why is it funny just to point out differences? When is it not funny? How do you feel when people point out ways in which you're different?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Heather Boerner
Comedian Jeff Foxworthy has said that Southerners are just as smart as everyone else. "Our only problem is that we can't keep the most ignorant amongst us off the television." Case in point -- LARRY THE CABLE GUY: HEALTH INSPECTOR. In this gross-out comedy, Larry bounces from fat joke to fart joke to gay joke to disabled joke to sexist joke and back again. And since he's a health inspector, there's also plenty of room for gags involving the runs, vomit, and cockroaches. You've been warned.
Larry the Cable Guy enjoys his job going from greasy spoon to Indian restaurant to the office. When a smarmy diner owner sues for a broken coccyx ("hehe, he said 'cock'!" Larry sniggers), he's demoted and given a straight-laced partner. When people at fancy restaurants start getting sick, Larry and his new partner, Amy Butlin (Iris Bahr), are on the case. But can they get to the bottom of the mysterious illness before the $250,000 Top Chef cook-off? And can Larry finally score with the sweet waitress who is inexplicably attracted to him?
Those, sadly, are the pressing issues in Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector. Indeed, Larry is a kind of everyman for a man of a certain age who feels worried about offending his coworkers and girlfriend simply by being himself. Larry tries to help wheelchair-bound Jack Dabbs (played by Arrested Development's brilliant Tony Hale) reach his beer or open the door for him and only receives offended stares. He eschews his partner's Prius for his ratty and junk-filled monster truck covered in Hooters bumper stickers. He mistakes his partner, a plain, serious woman, for a man and repeatedly says he's OK with him being gay. He seems to mean well, at least.
The comedy, when you can indeed call it that, stems from Larry's desire to do good in a world that has outgrown him. He's a kindergartener surrounded by grad students, a Neanderthal in a world of techies. There will be a certain demographic impervious to the gross stereotypes Larry promotes that will cheer for him as the underdog and laugh at all the ways he's inappropriate. And the rest of us will laugh nervously or not at all.
For the latter, it's important for the family to talk about why Larry feels the way he does, and why he makes the jokes he does. Being "politically incorrect" for its own sake is a theme in a lot of guy's-guy movies, like Grandma's Boy and Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. At least exploring the appeal of such humor should be the goal of any family that watches this. Better silly humor and clueless hero stories include Dumb and Dumber and Elf.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentLarry talks about women's body parts and objectifies women. |
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ViolenceOther than the violent illnesses people get, there's nothing to worry about. |
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LanguageLarry uses a lot of profanity, including "ass" and "s--t." |
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Social BehaviorLarry is well meaning, but the film glorifies a kind of sexist and offensive mindset. |
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