In this atrocious comedy, two boneheaded brothers search for a lost dog.
The title is bad enough, but it’s all downhill from there in the revolting Belgian farce “Mother Schmuckers.” I would say words fail me, but they don’t. It’s just that most of them are unprintable.
Written and directed by the siblings Lenny and Harpo Guit, this tasteless first feature presents the appalling adventures of Issachar and Zabulon (Maxi Delmelle and Harpo Guit), adult brothers who reside in Brussels with their permanently distraught mother, Cachemire (Claire Bodson). A prostitute who is equally fed up with her job and her idiot offspring — who are introduced frying up feces for breakfast — Cachemire issues the dolts an ultimatum: Find the family dog they recently misplaced, or get out.
What follows is an odious odyssey from one dust up to another as these two public menaces gobble trash, shoot a homeless man and, in one especially loathsome sequence, gate-crash a private bestiality club. Encounters with acquaintances — most only marginally less moronic than themselves — pad a screenplay with no apparent notion where it’s going, or how to get there. (The inexplicable slumming of Mathieu Amalric, as the men’s befuddled father, is another matter entirely.)
Ugly to look at and puerile to listen to, “Mother Schmuckers” makes 70 minutes feel like as many hours. Despite claiming inspiration from Italian comedies and the Farrelly brothers, the filmmakers seem unable to construct a truly funny joke or coherent story. We do eventually learn that Issachar and Zabulon believe themselves unloved; as far as this viewer is concerned, they’re absolutely right.
Mother Schmuckers
Not rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes. In theaters.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
