We love to laugh. But we love to laugh at things that are actually funny. Now, what is funny is subjective, but what is universally known is what is bad. And in the 2010s, there were some terrible films. Especially in the comedy department. A bad comedy is not just painful to sit through; everything about it is truly awful, to the point that laughs become nonexistent. From poor-timed humor to ridiculous concepts, to be considered the worst, there must not be any redeeming qualities.
While the 2010s have given us movies that are tens across the board, the six films here didn’t even get a point in their favor. They’re pure 0/10 entries. From great actors in terrible stories to an anthology comedy that we all wish had never been made, these six films are truly the pits. If they happen to be a favorite of yours? I apologize in advance. I have some great suggestions to fix your palate.
1
‘Behaving Badly’ (2014)
The 2000s were filled with iconic teen comedies with the future stars of the generation. So, of course, the next decade tried to replicate that formula with the next generation. In 2014, writer and director Tim Garrick invited Disney star and rising pop diva Selena Gomez to star in a teen sex comedy called Behaving Badly. Based on the autobiographical novel While I’m Dead Feed the Dog by Ric Browde, the film follows teenager Rick Stevens (Nat Wolff), who makes a foolish bet with Karlis Malinauskas (Nate Hartley), a mobster’s son, that he can sleep with his dream girl, Nina Pennington (Gomez), within a fortnight. But of course, Rick must navigate a series of bizarre and increasingly disastrous obstacles to win Nina’s heart, including Nina’s overbearing and brutish ex-boyfriend, Kevin Carpenter (Austin Stowell), Rick’s best friend’s mother, Pamela Bender (Elizabeth Shue), who keeps trying to seduce him, and a bizarre cast of local characters including a strip club owner, Jimmy Leach (Dylan McDermott), and scantily-clad angel named St. Lola (Mary-Louise Parker) who dispenses highly inappropriate advice. Though far from the wildest premise, at the end of the day, it’s an irredeemable misfire.
We’ll talk a lot here about great actors in terrible projects, but here, it was clear that with an existing source material, they clearly thought there could be substance. With abysmal writing and incoherent storytelling, there was no way to pull out ahead. It’s a typical teen sex comedy about a crush, but to find the funny, Garrick tries to go big with risky moments, only for them to crash out. There’s no charm or redeemable qualities in Rick’s story. Instead, he’s forced into hyper-sexualized scenes with shock value gags next to uncomfortable characters. Perhaps everyone surrounding Rick was meant to soften him, but Behaving Badly doesn’t have a single likable character. Gomez is the perfect dream girl who is forced to play a prop on a convoluted bet. At the end of the day, Behaving Badly is forgotten for all the right reasons.
2
‘Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star’ (2011)
There are certain actors who can get away with outlandish characters and stories because they’ve earned it. Think about your Adam Sandlers and Will Ferrells. For every flop, they have a resume that makes up for it. Nick Swardson is just not that guy. And he’s tried quite a few times to be a comedy leading man, but it’s just not in the cards. Even if Sandler tries to write a vehicle for you. Directed by Tom Brady and co-written by Sandler, Swardson, and Allen Covert, Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star was meant to reignite the ‘90s style in the 2010s, by which point audiences had already outgrown it. The comedy follows an innocent, goofy Midwestern grocery bagger named Bucky Larson (Swardson) who discovers that his conservative parents were once famous adult film stars. Inspired by the revelation, Bucky, who notoriously has a “small penis” and never kissed a girl, moves to Los Angeles with the naive dream of following in his parents’ footsteps, leading to a series of misadventures in the adult film industry. A stilted premise and a main character meant to be endearing, Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star is an antiquated film that is lazy at best.
The recurring gag centers on a single, repetitive joke about genital size. It’s not that it’s rundown; it’s a toxic misrepresentation that never earns a genuine laugh. Because that becomes the only distinguishing obstacle, there’s nothing redeemable in the titular character. Rather than further the film as a comedic dissertation on the stereotypical qualifications or physique for the industry, it’s used as a jab, mocking the porn industry as less-than— something that has a massively shifted opinion a decade and a half later. Instead of focusing on character development, the script operates as a glossary for sexual euphemisms and crude bodily-fluid gags. The laughs were intended, but if they came, it was through an act of desperation. Swardson may be a talented stand-up comedian and an entertaining supporting actor, but leading a film was impossible. He even managed to bring down Christina Ricci in the process. Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star is clunky at best.
3
‘Dirty Grandpa’ (2016)
Imagine having the opportunity to unite rising millennial heartthrob Zac Efron and legendary actor Robert De Niro for a buddy comedy. It sounds like a winning formula, but Dirty Grandpa turned out to be a mismatched mess. Directed by Dan Mazer, the raunchy comedy follows Jason Kelly (Efron), an uptight, straight-laced corporate lawyer, who is tricked into driving his recently widowed, foul-mouthed grandfather, Dick (De Niro), to Florida for a wild spring break right before his wedding to his boss’s controlling daughter, Meredith (Julianne Hough). The script by John M. Phillips is filled with inconsistencies, illogical plot points, and sudden shifts between hardcore humor and forced sentimentality. Considered by some as the worst movie of all time, Dirty Grandpa tried to give De Niro the chance to have fun, but in turn, did him dirty.
The film was meant to be a humorous clash of the generations. Instead, it’s a chaotic road trip film where any pearls of wisdom are lost amid the obtuse humor. Instead of a well-plotted narrative where growth occurs from the two men learning life lessons from one another, Dirty Grandpa hunkers down with shock-value and mean-spirited humor through the vessel of an Academy Award winner. Dirty Grandpa is littered with crude humor that frequently falls into the trap of misogynistic and homophobic punchlines. De Niro has done comedy well in the past, as in Meet the Parents. But seeing him in a crass, degrading role made some wonder if that franchise was a fluke.
4
‘InAPPropriate Comedy’ (2013)
Sketch comedy is best portrayed on stage or on the small screen. Trying to do it in film form is not a brazen risk but an ill-conceived decision. If you need proof, look no further than InAPPropriate Comedy. Directed by Vince Offer, perhaps better known as the ShamWow Guy, and written by Offer, Ken Pringle, and Ari Shaffir, the sketch-style comedy is framed around a computer tablet containing “offensive apps.” The film features a series of politically incorrect, boundary-pushing skits that satirize Hollywood culture and various stereotypes. Inappropriate Comedy is littered with reliance on shock humor, a mean-spirited tone, and a lack of cohesion, even though it tries to find a through line.
Aside from Shaffir, who infused himself into the film, InAPPropriate Comedy boasts an ensemble of legitimate stars, including Adrien Brody, Michelle Rodriguez, and Lindsay Lohan. Within the seven or so vignettes, the film tries to mock pop culture and Hollywood history through stale shock humor. Brody parodies Dirty Harry as “Flirty Harry,” in which gay innuendo becomes the punchline. Lohan makes a cameo as a starlet, a la Marilyn Monroe, taking revenge on paparazzi. The only actor who seemed to be in their element was Rob Schneider, who proudly took on two sketches. InAPPropriate Comedy is crude just because it thinks it can be. The writers found their sketches funny, but they were simply ill-timed and offensive. InAPPropriate Comedy might be the worst sketch-based movie of the decade, but the next film on this list overshadowed it forever.
5
‘Movie 43’ (2013)
The only reason why Movie 43 is as notorious as it is because of the vast number of legitimate powerhouse celebrities who agreed to partake in the abysmal project. Conceived by producer Charles B. Wessler, Movie 43 was proof that money can buy anything, but it can’t buy taste. Consisting of a series of disjointed, highly offensive, and absurd short stories, they are loosely tied together by an overarching narrative about a washed-up producer (Dennis Quaid) holding a Hollywood executive (Greg Kinnear) at gunpoint to pitch his insane movie ideas. A grossly meta film, Movie 43 features fourteen different storylines, each tackled by a different director, including Elizabeth Banks and James Gunn, all with the mission to use vile filth to find the funny.
As Wessler essentially put it, Movie 43 is Funny or Die with guardrails. Having such a negative reputation as a gross-out piece of cinema, it’s shocking that so many of these performers agreed to play, but the reality was, without the specific individuals, many of whom were friends of Wesslers, it’s likely it never would have been made. The movie assumes that gross, taboo topics equate directly to a punchline. The film features a mind-boggling, star-studded cast—including Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Emma Stone, Chris Pratt, and Halle Berry— all of whom were more than willing to degrade themselves. It would be generous to call Movie 43 a series of rejected Saturday Night Live skits, but that would be an insult to the long-running series. Movie 43 deserves to be seen just to say you watched it.
6
‘Nature Calls’ (2012)
A story about a sibling rivalry between wildly different siblings isn’t necessarily a new concept, so Nature Calls should have been an easy, breezy comedy. Unfortunately, it was not. Written and directed by Todd Rohal, the silly slapstick comedy follows two wildly different brothers who clash over how young boys should spend their time. Randy (Patton Oswalt) is a dedicated but depressed Scoutmaster who wants to take his apathetic troop on an epic, character-building camping trip. His brother, Kirk (Johnny Knoxville), is a wealthy tech-bro who hosts a massive, screen-filled sleepover to distract the boys. Frustrated by his dwindling troop and desperate to make his elderly father proud, Randy sneaks into Kirk’s house in the middle of the night and “kidnaps” the scouts for an unauthorized, hardcore trip into the woods. A bizarrely dark comedy, Nature Calls from an underwritten script that even its solid core of actors couldn’t save.
Nature Calls had the potential to be a 21st-century iteration of Bad News Bears, a kid-centric adventure through the lens of its less-than-equipped supervisors. Instead, through tonal shifts and aggressively vulgar humor, the target is missed. Oswalt and Knoxville work as the oddly opposing brothers on their own, but they’re so disconnected together that they feel as if they’re on their own solo journeys. In turn, they become one-dimensional, using the kids as props to further the plot, rather than build upon a heartwarming story. Even with a cast that also features Maura Tierney, Rob Riggle, and Patrice O’Neal, the material remained dull and derivative.
Nature Calls
- Release Date
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November 9, 2012
- Runtime
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79 minutes
- Director
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Todd Rohal
- Writers
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Todd Rohal
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