Run Ronnie Run! Movie Review

Based on characters and skits from David Cross and Bob Odenkirk's irreverant/scary Mr. Show series, Run Ronnie Run takes one of their least sustainable bits and turns it into a full-blown feature. Hmmm, okay. Let's play along.

So Ronnie Dobbs (Cross) is such a loser that he's married the same woman three times (he's trying to, anyway), and he's been arrested so often he's become a staple on Fuzz, a show borrowed from the obvious connection. In fact, Ronnie's insane appearances are so popular that he makes a career out of being arrested, thanks to a mamby-pamby infomercial producer (Odenkirk), who crafts a Ronnie-only version of Fuzz. Ronnie gets arrested every week, propositioning undercover cops and so on, and soon he's the kind of Hollywood celebrity that would qualify as the bastard child of Richard Hatch and Kid Rock.

His brand of white trash becomes so popular that he attracts the likes of Kathy Griffin and Jeff Goldblum, but Ronnie stays Ronnie -- crass and utterly idiotic. When tempted by a woman's suggestive banter, he makes a rather direct statement getting right to the point. Let's hear from Ronnie himself, when confronted with a cardboard cutout of a woman holding a pair of beer cans inviting him to grab two of them: "Man, I know they talking about beer, but I can think of another pair I'd like to grab. My balls."

This is often funny, but it's equally banal, as Ronnie's directness is pretty much a one-note joke. It's like reading about J. Lo and Ben -- it's the same story over and over again. Cross is funny, but he's simply better when he's bald. Here his schtick is outclassed by the countless celebrity cameos and non-sequitur vignettes, including one that unmasks the "gay conspiracy" (here headed by Patrick Warburton) and forces them to give up their plans for world domination. It's totally out of place in the film, and it's wholly unforgettable.