Larry the Cable Guy is the alter ego of comedian Dan Whitney. He's a redneck who says what's on his mind and what he observes in a thick Southern accent, wears a cap, jeans, and a plaid shirt with no sleeves, and his catchphrase is a rambunctious "Git-R-Done." He was very funny in Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie, and can be funny during his stand-up routine. Now here comes Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, a dreadful attempt to branch further into movies. The movie fails for three reasons. Well, it fails due to far more than three, but three stand out. First, it takes Larry and forces him into something he is not. Second, it takes something that is funny in small bits and drags it out to unbearable lengths. Third, it is just NOT FUNNY.
The movie wallows in toilet humor. Screenwriters Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer (Max Keeble's Big Move) wallow in the toilet, throwing out a constant stream of fart jokes, gay jokes, and all around gross-out humor. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but in order for it to work, it needs either to be funny or mix in with something else that is clever. Again, neither is the case here. It is tiresome, and Larry becomes annoying extremely quickly. His humor usually derives from his take on things. He comes from an everyman point of view, with lots of near-obscenity laced in, but all of it feels so lazy.
Larry is one of the best health inspectors around. His slovenly appearance and Southern accent belie a sharp mind. Yeah, right. His boss (John Fiore, Passionada, Meet the Parents) assigns Amy Butlin (Iris Bahr) as his partner to keep him in check. Butlin is a petite, homely woman, and Larry insists that she is actually a he. A local cooking contest is kicking into high gear, and somebody is poisoning all of the entrants. It's up to Larry and Butlin to learn how to work together and find the culprit before more people vomit or have extreme diarrhea. Gee, sounds thrilling. Larry is also romancing Jane Whitley (Megyn Price, Mystery, Alaska, Love Happens), who works in a lingerie store and in one of the restaurants. The film is so boring that one's mind soon begins to drift. Hey, doesn't Price really resemble Laura Linney? In the end, Larry jumped too far too fast. He was not ready for a full-length movie. At the very least he should have done something closer to his character. By stretching to be a health inspector (of all things), Larry the Cable Guy ran out of ideas quickly, and had to come up with dumb one-liners in order to fill out the movie.