Carl Reiners infamous 1979 box office smash, The Jerk, was actually the first movie to star comedian Steve Martin in a starring role. The Jerk is one of the more memorable comedies of the 1970's, but it is one that is horribly dated, with still very funny, but nonetheless old fashioned humor poking fun at the southern african american lifestyle, with plenty of stereotyping, and with one fairly famous, but still funy twist: Navin (Steve Martin), has been living with his loving black family, and on his 30th birthday, he finally finds out the truth: He is white. Yes. He discovers this within the first ten minutes. but, once he discovers this, he vows to branch out into the world and make a name for himself, while meeting a long string of strangers and odd people, until finally meeting the love of his life, but, when success goes to his head, he must find a way to get out. Sounds long, yes? Well, the movie is only 93 minutes long, so it is rather rushed. But, despite the fact that the movie is obviously very dated and overly crude by today's standards, The Jerk still works well enough on the audience, especially with Steve Martins ingenious performance, which emits laughter pretty much constantly throughout the whole movie, acting as a complete moron, but a goodhearted and well-meaning moron, at that. Now, despite the fact that the movie was made in 1979, and that the R Rating is slightly inaccurate by today's standards, it still isn't really very appropriate for younger children: There is frequent crude humor, occasionally involving both violence and sex, with numerous graphic implied sex scenes, and a scene where a crazed sniper angrily attempts to kill Navin, but is quickly foiled. Also, there is heavy, comical drinking throughout the movie, but, it is often to the point of excess. Also, there is frequent, but average profanity, including several uses each os sh-t, g-dd-mn, a--h-le, d-mn, h-ll, a--, crap and n-gg-r. Carl Reiner's comedy classic, The Jerk, still manages to make you laugh, all of these long years later, but it is occasionally because of the film's large amount of racist humor and crudeness.