Silence of the Hams Review

Silence of the Hams
The federal agent Joe Dee Foster is currently investigating on a serial killer, helped by doctor Animal who is isolated in a maximum security jail.

by Darren Bignell |
Published on
Release Date:

01 Jan 1994

Running Time:

81 minutes

Certificate:

15

Original Title:

Silence of the Hams

It is generally understood that when it comes to the mugging, farcical, out-and-out piss-take genre commonly known as the spoof movie, all the best bits will undoubtedly feature in the trailer — in this case, therefore, onscreen pre-release publicity must have lasted roughly five seconds. Because this long-on-the-shelf Italian effort ranks among the weakest, most unfunny and utterly unoriginal chunks of brain-stewing tedium that has ever dared crawl onto a projection reel.

There’s only one laugh to be had, and that comes after 60 inordinately long minutes of comic drought, by which time normal standards of judgment can no longer be relied upon. And it’s more a choked gurgle than a laugh, emitted by way of empathy with Zane’s hapless Jo Dee Forster (geddit?), as he shouts, “Will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?” With therapy, one can just about recall, that the answer is a pastiche of The Silence Of The Lambs, and latterly Psycho.

Zane wades through the usual barrage of word-play, sight gags and running jokes as a clean-cut FBI hero, giving a performance which makes his brief cameo in Only You look like a tour de force of comic genius. But he’s hardly assisted by a script staggeringly bereft of humour or invention, and a clumsy, amateurish direction that seems largely concerned with focusing on Charlene Tilton’s breasts.

DeLuise merely provides a sad reminder of funnier days, and by the closing credits only two questions remain: just who the hell is Ezio Greggio anyway, and why was he allowed to bring his painfully deluded vision to the screen?

Tat
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