THE PEST - turkey - John Leguizamo, Jeffrey Jones, Edoardo Ballerini, Aries Spears, Freddy Rodriguez; co-written and co-produced by Leguizamo; PG-13 (vulgarity, violence, profanity, nudity, racial epithets); Carmike 12 and Cottonwood Mall Theaters; Century 9 Theaters; Cinemark Sandy Movies 9; Cineplex Odeon Midvalley and Trolley Square Mall 4 Cinemas.
Quick, someone find a no-pest strip - or even a fly swatter or a good bug spray.
Comedian/actor John Leguiz-amo can be amusing at times - such as his film-stealing role as a cross-dresser in "To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar." At other times, he can be too over-the-top - such as his manic performance in last year's "William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet" and "House of Buggin'," his severely unfunny and short-lived TV sketch comedy series.
But to date, no one has made the mistake of letting Leguizamo carry a film project by himself, at least not until "The Pest," an irritating and extremely vulgar comedic riff on "The Most Dangerous Game" that attempts to remake him as a Latino Jim Carrey
And frankly, Carrey's two "Ace Ventura" movies look much better than this film, which not only one-ups the vulgarity quotient of its competitors but also adds some very mean-spirited jokes at the expense of the disabled.
Leguizamo stars as Pestario "Pest" Vargas, a chameleon-like Miami con man whose gambling activities have landed him in trouble with the "Scottish Mob," to whom he owes $50,000.
Pest's savior arrives in the person of Gustav Shank (Jeffrey Jones), who offers him a scholarship - $50,000, by some coincidence - just for going hunting with him. The catch, however, is that Gustav is a Nazi sympathizer who has collected dozens of "trophy" heads from specimens of what he considers "inferior races."
Gustav tells Pest he will get his $50,000 if he can survive for 24 hours on his private island/hunt-ing grounds. He gets a surprising ally in the person of Himmel (Edoardo Ballerini), Gustav's simpering son, who accidentally helps Pest escape.
But the persistent Gustav follows him back to Florida, where the hunt resumes and where Pest gets some support from his friends Ninja (Freddy Rodriguez) and Chubby (Aries Spears) - when he's not disguising himself as an African tribesman, an Orthodox rabbi or even a karaoke-singing Japanese businessman.
As you can probably tell from the character names alone, there is no real attempt to advance the story. Instead, any plot developments are buried under a ton of gross-out gags and flatulence jokes that fall flatter than a punctured hot-air balloon.
In particular, the boat-escape scene in which Leguizamo and Bal-ler-ini's characters proceed to throw up on each other may be the most painfully stupid scene in a film in years.
Even worse is the fact that we're supposed to laugh while Le-guiz-amo performs some very racist shtick and impressions, which will make most audiences cringe (in patrons with a conscience, at least).
The other performers are equally bad, though. Jones' "Hogan's Heroes" accent slips from scene to scene, and there's one Irish accent so bad that the uncredited actor who uses it should probably be clubbed with a shillelagh.
"The Pest" is rated PG-13 but should have received an R for wall-to-wall vulgar gags, cartoon-like violence, a few scattered profanities, brief nudity and glimpses of nude paintings and photos and a couple of racial epithets, both written and spoken.