JERK - HD DVD review

Long before Steve Martin became a staple of family comedies, he was a "wild and crazy guy." Martin was a stand-up comic who appeared as a guest star on numerous television comedy shows before making his feature film debut in the 1977 comedy he scripted, "The Absent-Minded Waiter." Martin was a frequent host and guest star on Television's "Saturday Night Live" and a regular guest on shows such as "The Smothers Brothers Show" and "The Ray Stevens Show." Martin's second film, 1979's "The Jerk" would find Martin with co-writer credits and a film platform that would allow him to become a bankable leading actor in comedies. "The Jerk" still stands as one of Martin's more off-color comedies and one of the films that trademark the actor's brand of humor.

"The Jerk" is a rags-to-riches-to-rags story where Steve Martin is unknowingly adopted son a black sharecropper. He is raised with his black brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents in a makeshift shack and Navin R. Johnson (Martin) has always felt different and at times like he didn't belong in his loving family. He had assumed his skin would eventually darken and that he would not always be white. He never had the rhythm that the rest of his family possessed and could never quite find a beat that suited him until he heard some white music on a radio one night. The music moved him and set him off to find his own life. He would hitchhike to St. Louis and adopt a stray dog he lovingly named Shithead. While working as a gas station attendant for Harry Hartounian (Jackie Mason), Navin came under fire from an angry sniper (M. Emmet Walsh) and left on another adventure.

This time, Navin would work as part of a carnivale and was the forced boyfriend of a tomboy stunt motorcyclist. He also found love in the young, naïve and lovely Marie Kimble (Bernadette Peters) and set off to romance the woman and show her his special purpose. During this time, Navin found riches with an invention he created while working at Hartounian's gas station, the Opti-grab glasses. Without knowing much of anything about money, Navin became one of American's fastest millionaires and spent his money on just about everything. Navin's dimwittedness caused him marital problems with Marie and lost his riches when a flaw with Opti-grab caused users to go cross-eyed and a class action suit from Carl Reiner (the film's director) forced Navin to pay everybody that bought an Opti-grab $1.09. Navin left his wife and mansion behind to own a Thermos and a bathrobe and live the life of a bum.

"The Jerk" is off-color comedy at its best. The film is chock full of humorous moments where Martin defends his black heritage and uses kung-fu to beat up those who insult black folk and use the dreaded N-Word. With the recent Don Imus controversy, we know the kind of trouble that can come from a white man using the N-Word or making other black references. M. Emmet Walsh portrays a sniper who picks names from a phonebook and attempts to kill them. After the D.C. Sniper killing spree, this is another situation not likely to make it into a modern Hollywood film. There are plenty of humorous sexual jokes, a servant shot to death in a firing squad and other sidesplitting moments that showcase what Steve Martin was capable of in his standup comedy and earlier films.

A decade later, Martin would star in the "Parenthood" and "Father of the Bride" films that would begin his foray into family-friendly entertainment. The versatile actor would star in a couple dramas and other fare that was not exactly the "wild and crazy" guy that Martin personified in his early career and early films such as "The Jerk." This film is a testament to the zaniness that made him a popular comedian and comedic actor in the late Seventies and early Eighties. This is not his best outing, as the plot is simplistic and some plotlines are thrown in solely for the purpose of a good laugh. The film does deliver the laughs and even though it is not the brand of humor Hollywood would greenlight today, it holds up well. A decade before "The Jerk," he was writing for "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour." A decade later, he was starring in "Parenthood." This is the definitive "Wild and Crazy Guy" comedy for Steve Martin and shows that early on, he wasn't afraid of dirty humor and pure stupidity in front of the camera.

Video:
"The Jerk" is an unusual choice for a catalog title to be released onto the HD-DVD format in the middle of a format war. What is even more unusual is the fact that this title is not a Combo-Format release that Universal has strongly been supporting. "The Jerk" certainly feels as if it should be a shoo-in for the HD-DVD/DVD hybrid format. The 1.85:1 widescreen transfer is mastered in VC-1 and appears to share the same master print as the recent 25th Anniversary release on DVD. "The Jerk" is an unusual choice, not because of its story and content, but because of the nature of its visuals.

The film does not possess a striking looking picture and some scenes are rough enough that the HD-DVD and the DVD were hardly discernable from one another. The opening moments where Martin is a simple street bum were virtually identical between the formats. The rest of the film has its ups and downs visually. There are a few scenes that are highly detailed and look about average for a high definition release. Other times, you'd be hard pressed to believe you are watching an HD-DVD release. The colors benefit a bit more than detail with the newer format, as they are warmer and more vibrant. The source print has the same flaws as the older DVD release, with a few scratches and other visual flaws. This isn't the worst looking HD-DVD release out there, but it is definitely close.

Sound:
"The Jerk" comes to HD-DVD with an English Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 soundtrack and a French Dolby Digital Plus 2.0 mix. The 5.1 Plus mix is essentially a higher bitrate version of the 2005 DVD release. It is as underwhelming as the picture quality and is once again the blame of the source materials. "The Jerk" was a low budget film from 1979. Nearly thirty years later, it is a poorly preserved comedy that tries to use technology the best it can, but its sparsely better than stereo soundtrack doesn't utilize much of the space provided by a 5.1 multi-channel surround track. There is not a lot of bass provided and the .1 LFE channel is silent through most (if not all) of the film's running length. Dialogue is flat and at lower volumes, some of the words were lost. I had to play "The Jerk" at about four decibels louder than I typically watch films. Much of the remaining elements of the film sounded flat as well. There were no notable musical selections or action sequences to bring life to the film. The sniper scene where many cans lost their lives was the best sounding moment of the film and that barely rattled anything more than the left and right mid-range speakers.

Extras:
Universal has released many of their recent HD-DVDs with a vanilla menu screen that simply featured the film's title logo. "The Jerk" benefits from having a few images from the film shown in motion during the menu screen. This is a better treatment that other higher-quality films have received and considering there is only about ten minutes of bonus materials, this is another unusual aspect of the HD-DVD release. The first supplement is "Tonight You Belong To Me": Learn To Play This Classic Tune on the Ukulele. This feature runs for just over six minutes and features a very fast overview of the chords required to play the song and then displays them as the song is played. The feature wraps up showing the scene between Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters where the song was played. This was not a very good tutorial, though I did try playing the song on my guitar using the tutorial. The second supplement is The Lost Filmstrips of Father Carlos Las Vegas De Cordova. This five minute strip is a deleted scenes segment that shows more than the Kitten Juggling featured in the film. They were not entertaining. Finally, the Theatrical Trailer is provided, but not listed on the packaging.

Closing Thoughts:
This is a very underwhelming HD-DVD release. I laugh my arse off while watching "The Jerk" and have always enjoyed the film. I eagerly awaited the HD-DVD release and was hoping it would have been a substantial improvement over the fairly recent DVD release. It was not. Both the sound and picture quality are handicapped by less than desirable source materials. It would take a Criterion-like remastering to bring new life to a film like "The Jerk." Sound would need to be completely reimagined to fully fill the 5.1 channels or available space and a digital restoration would be needed to clean the film up visually. The features are just plain stupid. Not fun. Just stupid. The film is worth watching and remains one of the better early Steve Martin films. For those that remember him as "The Wild and Crazy Guy," this is the best reminder of those days. For those that already own the recent widescreen DVD, I'd recommend just holding onto that for now. The slight improvement in picture quality is not necessarily enough to warrant a purchase of this title.