Six Awful Films Whose Titles Unintentionally Double as Kick-Me Signs

Six Awful Films Whose Titles Unintentionally Double as Kick-Me Signs

By Matt Prigge
Add Comment Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Mar. 5, 2008

Witless Protection

Perfect (1985): Rule No. 1 when making a comedy starring a fading star (in this case, John Travolta): Don't put anything denoting quality, particularly strength, in the title. All it does is give critics and audiences ammunition when your feeble comedy about the aerobics craze is anything but, and whose poor box-office numbers justly kept the star off the big screen for four full years (until 1989's The Experts--another doozy of a title).

Life Stinks (1991): And the same goes for movies by washed-up filmmaker/stars. Late-period Broadway success was still a decade off for Mel Brooks when he made this flaccid, preachy attempt at Sturgesian satire about a tycoon who makes a bet he can live homeless in L.A. for 30 days. As the line goes: Life stinks--and so does your movie.

Dear God (1996): Greg Kinnear, still trying to find a place in Hollywood after Sabrina, played a con man who winds up working in the dead letter office, where he warms up the world by answering letters addressed to the big man in the sky. Altogether now: Dear God.

What's the Worst That Could Happen? (2001): What, when your movie pairs Danny DeVito with Martin Lawrence (and is based on a Donald E. Westlake pulp novel, no less)? Indeed.

Paycheck (2003): The movie's called Paycheck. It's yet another desecration of Philip K. Dick. It stars Ben Affleck, Aaron Eckhart, Uma Thurman and Paul Giamatti, all of them sleepwalking. It was directed by John Woo, who came in as a last-minute replacement and whose sole directorial stamp is throwing a couple of his goddamn doves into the action from time to time. It's called Paycheck.

Witless Protection (2008): Larry the Cable Guy? Witless? No! Seriously, it's as though there's a lone smart, talented guy in the whole LTCG movie machine and by slipping "witless" into the very title itself, he's trying to signal for help the way a soldier would with morse code. Nice work, saboteur.

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