Navin is an idiot. He grew up in Mississippi as adopted son of a black family but on his 18th birthday he feels he wants to discover the rest of the world and sets out to St. Louis. There everyone exploits his naivety, but then a simple invention brings him a fortune.
13 May 1922, Chicago, Illinois, USA
27 February 1940, Lebanon, Oregon, USA
23 July 1944, Corpus Christi, Texas, USA
23 December 1949, Los Angeles, California, USA
8 February 1919, Superior, Nebraska, USA
18 May 1922, Revere, Massachusetts, USA
4 July 1947, Ohio, USA
26 December 1922, USA
11 October 1950, Los Angeles, California, USA
11 December 1946, Texas, USA
25 December 1932, Charleston, South Carolina, USA
20 May 1921, Plymouth, England, UK
9 June 1931, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, USA
18 March 1938, New York City, New York, USA
30 January 1950, Mission, Texas, USA
2 February 1935, Los Angeles, California, USA
September 3, 1944 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
18 September 1946, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
31 August 1940, New York City, New York, USA
6 March 1947, The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA
29 February 1948, Texas, USA
14 August 1945, Waco, Texas, USA
24 June 1922, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
February 13, 2010
92 minutes of direct and sweet surrealismJune 24, 2006
The comedy runs out of steam when the jerk makes good, but laugh for laugh it's probably a better investment than 10.July 05, 2005
We get the sense at times that the cast and crew arrived at a location, found the script bankrupt of real laughs, and started looking around for funny props.February 02, 2009
Its humor is successful and unsuccessful by turns, and although Comedian Carl Reiner is the director, the instinct here is to give most of both credit and blame to Martin.May 09, 2005
The laughs aren't steady, but they're persistent, and the film moves fast enough to compensate for its unevenness.January 25, 2006
Steve Martin is at the height of his comic powers in this very un-PC comedy.July 31, 2005
While The Jerk is an extremely episodic little movie, that's a malady easily forgiven -- simply because the episodes are so damn funny.April 06, 2006
The whole thing is uneven and slight, but the highlight moments guilty-pleasure us with the sort of stupid-funny that's 'LOL' quotable afterward.February 02, 2009
If only he could have satisfied himself with this area of expertise, people would still talk of Steve Martin as one of the kings of comic cinema.February 06, 2005
Martin's one-liners are pretty funny, very dry, and awfully quotable.February 02, 2009
An artless, non-stop barrage of off-the-wall situations, funny and unfunny jokes, generally effective and sometimes hilarious sight gags and bawdy non sequiturs.December 12, 2012
An oddball odyssey so strange, filled with non-sequiturs so funny, and decorated by a romance so sweet, it was an inevitable star-maker.