THE DARK BACKWARD

Sometimes, when you're fourteen years old, you see Judd Nelson on The Arsenio Hall Show, and you tape his segment because he's hot, and you loved John Bender, and there's really not enough Judd Nelson to go around.  Then you watch that tape, like, four times and listen as he promotes a new movie called The Dark Backward about a stand-up comedian who grows a third arm out of the middle of his back.  A few months later, you start to wonder why you can't rent the movie or check it out at the library when it's so obviously appealing and not only stars the lovely Judd Nelson, but also WAYNE NEWTON.  And then you keep wondering this for twenty whole years before you finally find it on NetFlix.  And when you finally, finally get to watch it...it just sucks.  I hate it when that happens.

 

Indeed the movie is about a stand-up comedian named Marty Malt (Nelson) who grows a third arm out of the middle of his back.  Unfortunately, this fabulous premise is ruined by the fact that Marty is exceedingly unfunny and lives in some sort of parallel universe that is dark, dirty, vaguely post-apocalyptic, and also exceedingly unfunny.  He works as a garbage collector by day, but spends most of his mental energy trying to figure out how to make it big.  His plans, like his jokes, always fall flat, and this skinny, slouchy, greasy, nebbish soul is perpetually dismissed by the world at large.  He's generally overshadowed by his amped-up friend Gus (Bill Paxton) who oozes frentetic energy and has a fat fetish, and even Marty's girlfriend (Lara Flynn Boyle) seems only to tolerate him.  Really, the last thing the poor guy needs is a scary-looking lump on his back.

 

The lump slowly grows into what looks like a baby's hand smack in the middle of Marty's back.  Thankfully, his visits to the doctor are amusing: he's first told to ignore the hand, then the doctor gingerly places a bandaid over the fingers and sends Marty on his way.  Upon seeing the growth, Marty's girlfriend is horrified and promptly leaves him, but Gus (in his infinite perversity) begins to see the arm as a hook.  Perhaps *that* could be Marty's selling point!  They take their case to talent promoter Jackie Chrome (Wayne Newton) and Marty Malt is given his shot at fame and fortune.  But it doesn't work out.  And that's pretty much that.

 

Though the movie does entertain some interesting and funny ideas, the execution simply misses the mark.  This could have a lot to do with the fact that Adam Rifkin was only nineteen when he wrote the film, but that doesn't make it any easier to watch random orgies with fat ladies, and sight gags like cartons of pork juice in the refrigerator.  The world depicted in The Dark Backward is so unrelatable that is doesn't matter that the cast is full of familiar faces or that Judd Nelson himself offers up a respectable, nuanced performance.  Definitely not worth the twenty year wait.