Tom Green can make a flat stare funny by holding it longer than good manners allow. We like him best in small doses, with a director prepared to interrupt; left to fill the evening, that stubbornness wears thin.
Fi1m perspective
In Road Trip (2000), Tom Green's Barry gives prospective students a campus tour and tells them a story instead of the history. The slow blink and flat stare suggest that there is no pressing reason to get on with either. Green keeps a joke going after it has become uncomfortable, and makes the waiting part of the joke. We found him funny about two times in three, and were relieved whenever the film cut away, because that persistence also becomes exhausting.
That habit came out of the prank and reaction comedy of The Tom Green Show (1994), which reached MTV in 1999. His television work put absurd physical behaviour in front of unsuspecting people; the deadpan delivery made their reactions part of the entertainment. Supporting parts in Superstar (1999) and Charlie's Angels (2000) brought that disruptive presence into feature films. It is an act suited to playing someone socially oblivious: Green can prolong the discomfort without having to explain why his character does not notice it.
Todd Phillips and co-writer Scot Armstrong make Barry the storyteller in Road Trip, giving Green room to interrupt the campus tour with his own diversions. The business of feeding a live mouse to Rubin's snake is characteristic: an animal, an audience and a willingness to make the encounter unpleasant. The character supplies an excuse for these interruptions, though not every interruption earns its place. Phillips gets enough laughs out of him to justify the casting, but the film also shows why more time with Green is not necessarily a benefit.
The risk became greater with Freddy Got Fingered (2001), which Green wrote, directed and starred in. It later developed a cult following, though the complaints about repetitive shocks and weak narrative shape fit the limitation already apparent in Barry. Giving an entire film to a performer who refuses to stop a joke requires considerable faith in the audience's patience. His subsequent film roles were fewer and smaller, and his work returned to stand-up and talk formats. Try Road Trip with company before choosing a film that gives him more to do.
Biography
Tom Green is a Canadian comedian, actor and television personality. Born Michael Thomas Green on 30 July 1971 in Pembroke, Ontario, he began performing stand-up comedy in his teens and later studied television broadcasting.
Green created and hosted The Tom Green Show, which aired on Canadian channels before moving to MTV in 1999. He appeared in the films Road Trip (2000) as Barry, Charlie's Angels (2000) as Chad, Freddy Got Fingered (2001) as Gord Brody (which he also directed and wrote), and Stealing Harvard (2002). He was married to actress Drew Barrymore from 2001 to 2002.
