The Jerk (1979) * * *

Directed by:  Carl Reiner

Starring:  Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Carl Reiner, Mabel King, Richard Ward, Bill Macy, M. Emmet Walsh, Catlin Adams

Maybe The Jerk isn't an apt description of Navin Johnson (Martin).   He is more of a simpleton, a doofus, or slow on the uptake.   Otherwise, he is an eternally optimistic guy mostly because he isn't exactly bright enough to figure out what's going on around him.    For example:  A gun-toting madman (Walsh) picks Navin's name out of the phone book and targets him for death.    He tracks Navin to the gas station where he works and begins firing.    The shots hit the cans of oil on display, but not Navin, so Navin deduces, "He hates these cans!"   Navin is a nice guy, but a bit dense.  

It takes Navin years to realize he was adopted even though he is white and his family is black.   But, he takes this news as an opportunity to leave his family's shack in the South and venture West to stake his own claim in the world.    The Jerk is an amusing comedy with more hits than misses with its barrage of both verbal and visual gags.    Navin may be a goof, but he's likable and played with an eternal grin by Steve Martin, in his first feature-film starring role.    Martin would team again with director Carl Reiner in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982), The Man with Two Brains (1983), and All of Me (1984), with the two former films relying on laff-a-minit gags while All of Me succeeds as a slapstick love story with the soul of Lily Tomlin inside Steve Martin's body.

Navin falls for Marie (Peters), who at first leaves him because he's dopey, but then they reunite and marry after he hits it big as the inventor of Optigrab, a small piece of metal which prevents eyeglasses from sliding down your nose.    Navin and his money are soon parted, as he and Marie spend money on a grotesquely lavish mansion and are suckers for anyone who comes in looking for a hand out.    A priest from Mexico shows Navin a film of "cat juggling" (Martin is also the cat juggler in the seedy film) and Navin whips out the checkbook.    The Optigrab itself is a huge success, until its side effects are publicly revealed by none other than Carl Reiner himself, who blames the Optigrab for a tragic movie set accident.    "It's not about losing the money," Marie whines, "I just don't want to lose all the stuff,"

The Jerk throws gags and jokes at the wall at a dizzying pace, but it mostly succeeds because it is often more funny than not.    Martin's career was launched and over the years has proven to be not just a brilliant comic actor, but an actor with depth in movies like Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and LA Story.    We've seen him evolve since The Jerk, but The Jerk was a good start to a distinguished movie career.