One Paragraph Movie Review: The Jerk.

Two hundred and seventy-first film: The Jerk, Steve Martin’s first feature film that watches like a stick-figure drawing of Forrest Gump. The early scenes, in which Martin’s Navin narrates his upbringing as a poor black child, are moderately uncomfortable but deeply hilarious, and the rest of the movie has absolutely no underlying point but many, many laughs. The early love story between Martin and the almost impolitely talented Bernadette Peters is completely enchanting, and made me want to find their version of ‘Tonight You Belong To Me’ — featuring Peters’ cornet solo — on Spotify, only to find, with bemusement and a manageable level of disappointment, the version by Eddie Vedder and Cat Power. The Jerk has hardly any substance but gag after gag, and it’s almost impossible not to like 1970s Steve Martin unless you have a body hair-specific phobia. I know this movie is only 94 minutes, but to me it seemed like 102 minutes. Three and a three quarter cups o’ pizza out of five.