Reception
The film received mostly negative critical reviews. It was referred to as a "leaden, taste-deprived attempted comedy" and "a desert of comedy" with only infrequent humor in the New York Times. The Los Angeles Times described it as "a tone-deaf, scattershot and dispiritingly cheesy affair with more groans than laughs", and though Macdonald "does uncork a few solid one-liners", his lack of conviction in his acting "is amusing in and of itself, but it doesn't help the movie much". The San Francisco Chronicle recommended the film only for "people who like stupid lowdown vulgar comedy. I had a few good laughs."
It has a 17% critic rating at Rotten Tomatoes, averaged from 23 reviews, but it is moderately popular among viewers, with a 65%. rating from the Rotten Tomatoes community. The film has been described as a "cult classic." In his column, My Year Of Flops, critic Nathan Rabin describes Dirty Work as an example of "the ironic dumb comedy, the slyly postmodern lowbrow gag-fest that so lustily, nakedly embraces and exposes the machinations and conventions of stupid laffers that it becomes a sort of sublime bit of meta-comedy."
On co-star Artie Lange's stand-up comedy DVD, It's The Whiskey Talkin', an audience member asks him to sign his copy of Dirty Work; he does so, then gives the fan ten dollars, saying "you don't see Ben Affleck doing that for Gigli!" Lange then mentions that the review in his home town paper, The Star Ledger, said that he "had all the charm of a date rapist," to which Norm Macdonald replied (in a sincere attempt to cheer him up) "that's a lot better than saying you have the charm of a regular rapist! A date rapist still has to get a date!"
Read more about this topic: Dirty Work (1998 film)
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