The fraternal filmmaking team of Peter and Bobby Farrelly (Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin) step up their efforts to push bad taste past the threshold of bravery. The sticking point in this undertaking is that there is nothing pushing back. The dam broke a long time ago, and the Farrellys are simply paddling as fast as they can to catch up with the crest of the wave. (Major stride forward: the glutinous glob of semen dangling from the earlobe of the romantic-comedy hero when he answers the door to his dream date.) Much of the humor, or what passes for it, revolves around physical imperfections: Mongolism, sagging breasts, a hot-chocolate suntan, zits, hives, teeth braces, leg braces (the gifted British comic, Lee Evans, balancing on a couple of metal crutches like Everett Sloan in Lady from Shanghai, makes the most of these), though it should be said in a hurry that Cameron Diaz, less an actress than a smile-on-a-stick, is unblemished by any such chinks. Her role, after all, is nothing less than the male ideal of the Perfect Girl -- all the way down to her ravenous appetite for sports. (It looks, however, as if she had not been paying attention during her five minutes of coaching on her golf swing.) The rough treatment of a tiny terrier is much more run-of-the-mill comic material, as yellowed as the proverbial banana peel. Matt Dillon has some good moments as a sleazy private eye, using state-of-the-art surveillance equipment to school himself on the soft spots of the heroine, while doing nothing for his own rough spots: "I work with retards," he says to impress her. "Those goofy bastards are just about the best thing I've got going in this crazy world." And Ben Stiller, our lovesick hero, displays at times an appalling openness of feeling. The Farrellys, however, can never be seen as bona fide filmmakers, much less brave ones, until they notice and do something about their film's pasty face. (1998) — Duncan Shepherd
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