A Year of Garbage Movies #91, “Delta Farce” (2007)

Usually when I watch these atrocities I have one thing going for me: the veil of ignorance. I don’t really know what I’m in for.

Unfortunately I had previously seen the first 20 minutes of Delta Farce, so I knew exactly what I was going to have to force myself through. Larry the Cable Guy is the star. That should tell you a lot.

The basic premise of the movie is that 3 rednecks in the Army Reserves get their orders to mobilize and head to Iraq. While on the transport, they fall asleep in a jeep that is dropped in Mexico. The first half of the movie is them believing they are in Iraq and making a bunch of jokes about Saddam Hussein and/or Muslims in general. The second half has them realizing their mistake and making a bunch of jokes about Mexicans. And Muslims.

Given that this movie came out in 2007, which as I can recall is about the point where people were fairly fed up with the war in Iraq, it’s hard to tell whether this is a jab at our continued presence there, or a defense of it. On the other hand it may be best not to dig too deep for a message here. While there were parts of the movie that could have been funny, they were sort of ruined by treating the audience like they’re idiots. For instance, the bandit leader played by Danny Trejo is named Carlos Santana. That would have been perfectly funny if it garnered no vocal response from any other other characters, letting the background guitar riff that accompanies his introduction aid in the delivery. Instead, every character that meets him says “The singer?” and the joke is explained at least two more times in other contexts.

The rest of it is just heavy-handed. While Larry the Cable Guy and Bill Engvall’s dumbassery is supposed to be a statement on the sort of ignorance their characters display (I think), the delivery falls flat and it comes across as more mean-spirited than it was probably intended.

Where I’m less reluctant to give them the benefit of the doubt is

1. A scene where two characters abduct the sergeant, dress him in a negligee and it is implied are about to rape him when he punches them and escapes. Presumably we are supposed to laugh at this
2. Trejo gives a defense of his gay nephew which vaguely borders on progressive until he tells a captured Bill Engvall that he should give up any info he has because he’s “looking for a wife”. We are later subjected to a bizarre scene where the sergeant is forced into a Sonny and Cher duet with said nephew…who is now wearing makeup and attempts to climb onto the bound soldier.

So yeah, there’s that.

Pros:

• There is only one “Git’r doooone” and it happens within the first few minutes, so we don’t have that hanging over our heads the whole time.
• Danny Trejo

Cons:

• Reinforces the stereotype that a southern accent makes you stupid, and I hate that.
• While I do enjoy listening to some Ron White standup from time to time, I think I’ve lost my appetite for Blue Collar Comedy for the foreseeable future.