Runtime: 91 minutes
Written and directed by: Barry Shurchin
Starring: Barry Shurchin, Eric Palladino, Veronica Cartwright, Lukas Haas

Reviewed by: Peter C. Bowen
Rating: 3 of 4 stars (good)

Barry Dingle is directed by Barry Shurchin who was at the screening for a Q & A at the Rome International Film Festival. The Barry in the movie is a complete schmuck and so is the real life Barry. I found out from my brother that Shurchin was caught stuffing the ballot boxes in order to win the audience choice award and was disqualified from competition. This is not at all surprising seeing as how he kept telling us that he just wanted to win so that when the distributor (he’s sold the movie and it will get a 2006 theatrical release) makes promotion posters they can put “Winner of the Audience Choice Award: Rome International Film Festival.” He was quick to point out that, “nobody will think it’s Rome, Georgia! I mean, c’mon, they’ll totally think it’s Rome, Italy and that will look awesome!” Shurchin didn’t seem to notice that he was insulting the home town of most of his audience. In his defense, they didn’t seem to mind. Of course the crowd was mostly people he had pulled out of the bars near the venue, so they were too drunk to care.

So you’d think I hated this movie right? Well I loved it. I really don’t even think Shurchin would mind being called a complete bastard. He made a point of telling everyone that he was well aware that his film is unredeemably offensive and that if we hated him he didn’t mind if we told him so. He was 100% ready to defend his film, if not his morality. I kind of admired his, “I’m an a$$hole, that’s just kinda my style” approach to things. Also, I was ready to see some trash after all the art films I’d taken in over the weekend.

Barry Dingle is the story of Barry and his Mom, Eleanor, who has decided that he will marry the daughter of the next President of the United States. Barry is not too keen on wooing the girl due to her less than stellar looks. But before Barry can get to work on the politician’s daughter, he is finally busted for what is apparently the last in a long line of date rapes. Yes this is a comedy about rape. I said it was tasteless.

Barry has somehow managed to get a beautiful girl to come back to his mom’s house where he still lives. Suffice it to say he doesn’t take no for an answer and the girl successfully fights him off. Barry is indignant that she wouldn’t let him just finish up and digs himself deeper and deeper. The girl, Joanna, isn’t going to let Barry get away with it this time and presses charges. Barry’s mom, Eleanor, knows all about his habits with the ladies and doesn’t care. There are no good people in this film really. She berates Barry’s defense attorney as a “stupid Polack” etc. and demands that he get Barry out of his latest indiscretion. Unfortunately for Barry, his lawyer’s daughter was raped and he is less than effective in presenting Barry’s defense of “I was frustrated and angry! She wouldn’t let me sleep with her!” Obviously Barry has no idea that he is a complete lowlife, and has apparently always gotten whatever he wants. All of the men in this movie are essentially still boys, spoiled rotten boys.

Of course Barry is convicted, and of course he gets his when he goes to prison. The only glimpse we see (we don’t want any more trust me) of prison life for Barry is him being butt-raped by a large black man while he’s wearing a big Chef Boyardee hat in the prison kitchen. Shurchin said in the Q & A that the chef was in fact his inspiration for the scene. He apparently felt that Chef Boyardee was some kind of sinister figure and wanted revenge on him. There’s just something inherently funny about a man wearing an ridiculous hat being raped. Shurchin said he wanted to do a comedy about rape and he pulled it off.

After three years in prison Barry is finally released. Eleanor wastes no time in getting him ready to resume her mission for him of marrying Ethel Chivers, gamely played by Nicole Sullivan. Before Barry went inside, Ethel’s father was a candidate for the US Senate. Now he is the sitting senator and a likely candidate for the Presidency. While Barry was getting acquainted with the prison kitchen staff, Ethel married Barry’s rival Derek Childers. Derek tragically died of rectal cancer and Ethel is back on the market. Eleanor Dingle is determined to marry Barry off to Ethel before Derek’s mom, Deborah, can push Derek’s identical idiot brothers on poor Ethel.

The Childers brothers are all played by Eric Palladino who is downright hilarious. Eleanor successfully sabotages the dates of each of the other two Childers boys. Palladino perfectly portrays these man-children. The first replacement brother cannot seem to figure out that he shouldn’t try to kiss a girl after she’s found a rifle-mounted dildo in his car. To emphasize the fact that these men never grew up we see a great scene in a school playground in which Barry and Childers #3 try to talk to each other while their moms try to insult each other. Again Palladino is spot on. When asked what happened to his neck (it’s in a big neck brace) by Barry he just answers, “It got hurt.” I’ve never really been a big fan of Palladino but lately he’s been doing some cool stuff. Besides this film he’s in FX’s big Iraq War series Over There as Sgt. Scream. It’s a great show and definitely worth checking out.

As the film moves into the last act, Barry and Eleanor, mostly Eleanor, add revenge on Joanna to their mission to get into the White House. Barry is mostly beaten by his prison experience and seems to just want to fade away. Eleanor will not allow this though. Joanna has gotten married while Barry was in prison and Eleanor has a plan to ruin the marriage. Barry poses as a corporate attorney looking for office space and engages Joanna’s husband Matt who is a commercial real estate broker. Matt finds the perfect space for Dingle, Lipshitz & Hyman so Barry throws a big party to celebrate in which Matt will be caught in bed with two strippers. The plan follows through and the one person in the world that doesn’t hate Barry, Matt, is crushed and becomes another mortal enemy.

From this point on it is a race to see which plot will be victorious. Every character has hatched something. Matt wants to kill Barry; he wins the prize for simplicity of planning. Joanna wants to subject Barry to his own medicine so she tries to recruit his other victims to help her. Eleanor wants to keep the Childers family away from Ethel Chivers and Ethel just wants everybody to leave her and her huge forehead alone. You’ll have to find this movie when it comes out to see who wins.

As I said earlier this is a movie totally devoid of any kind of decency. It is very much a trashy exploitation film. It is also absolutely successful at being hysterical. It’s not brain surgery or anything so don’t expect too much but if South Park type humor is your thing you will not be disappointed at all.