This movie is the latest release from Adam Sandler’s production company, Happy Gilmore, which previously brought us “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo” and “Little Nicky”. For some people, this will inspire nameless dread, but not to me. Au contraire, from the first time I saw images from “Joe Dirt”, I was grinning hard and looking forward to it. Sure, movies like this aren’t high art, not by a long stretch, but they’re wildly entertaining. Critics tend to put all lowbrow comedies in the same basket, dismissing them as juvenile gross-out humor, failing to see that there’s a difference between the an audience insulting, mean spirited movie and a comparatively harmless goofy little movie. Sandler’s movies are most often “inner circle” affairs, put together between college buddies, old Saturday Night Live castmates and various recurring hang-arounds having a good time. Here, for instance, Sandler acts as executive producer while David Spade stars (he also co-wrote the script with Fred Wolf).

The movie revolves around Joe Dirt (Spade), a mullet and trash ‘stache wearin’, rock concert T-shirt, acid wash jean sportin’, badass chain-steering-wheeled car drivin’ dude who works as a janitor at a trendy Los Angeles radio station. He somehow catches the eye of popular shock jock DJ (Dennis Miller) who, fascinated by this “white trash treasure”, puts him on the air and gives him the opportunity to tell the world (well, Southern California) his story. So we follow Joe as he reminisces by his bizarre life, starting from when his parents lost him during a visit to the Grand Canyon at age 8. He tells about how he went from foster home to foster home, passed through reform school and then settled for a while in the postcard perfect Silver Town, where he befriended the bodacious Brandy (Brittany Daniel) and her dog Charlie, only to leave again to cross the country looking for his parents…

Which, of course, is just an excuse to kick off a not that usual road movie which has our pathetic hero working at various loser jobs, getting into plenty of wacky situations and meeting colorful people like rapcore superstar Kid Rock (who’s actually a lot of fun) as Dirt’s muscle car driving nemesis, Kevin Nealon as a greasy mechanic, Jaime Pressly as a trailer park beauty, Roseanne Arquette as a gator farm owner (check out that shirt!), Brian Thompson as a redneck who’s watched “Silence Of The Lambs” one too many time, Adam Beach as the wise Kicking Wing, as well as Christopher Walken, who steals the movie as creepy school janitor Clem.

First time director Dennie Gordon, while not being the future of Hollywood or anything, crafts a good looking, nicely paced ride packed with macho arena rock anthems from Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Def Leppard and others. It’s like “Forrest Gump”, but with flaming cow farts, a smelly meteor, frozen testicles, incestuous sex, canine copulation, a gator attack, a hot air balloon in the shape of a tooth and various other ventures into bad taste. All of which could make for a pretty horrible time, except that it’s all in good fun. Unlike a movie like “Meet the Parents” in which the filmmakers seem to hate their protagonist and be out to humiliate him in the cruellest ways, here Joe Dirt is actually made to be a sympathetic character. As portrayed by David Spade, who for once holds back the cynicism and attitude to disappear under Dirt’s blond mullet, Joe is often ridiculous and rather dumb, but there’s a sweetness to him. In that aspect, “Joe Dirt” reminds of feel good 80s comedies in which even the saddest individuals are entitled to a happy end.