Forgotten Raunchy, R-Rated 2000s Crime Comedy Turns Every Side Quest Into A Disaster

By Robert Scucci
| Published 21 hours ago

In my adult life, there’s nothing worse than being forced onto side quests. You run to the grocery store, but while you’re out your car tells you that you have to check your tire pressure. You go to do that and realize a tail light is out, so you head to the auto parts store for a replacement bulb. You finally get home, only to discover you need a proprietary tool to access the rear lights. But you bought the car second-hand, this is the first time you’ve had to change the tail light, and now you have to figure out how to access it.

The feeling I get when this happens reminds me of 2000’s Poor White Trash, which starts out with simple petty theft before turning into an entire fiasco involving the whole town as our heroes decide to rob a bunch of trailer homes in the most incompetent fashion imaginable. There are so many side characters in Poor White Trash, too many to fully unpack here, but they’re also the reason this flick is such a great comedy of errors. Just when you think things can’t get any crazier, they always do.

Things Get Crazy In Poor White Trash

Poor White Trash wastes no time getting Mike (Tony Denman) and Lennie (Jacob Tierney) into trouble, and their adventure begins with stealing non-alcoholic beer from a local convenience store. While trying to rob the store, Lennie, who’s also a pyromaniac, accidentally blows up a car parked out front, injuring the owner in the process. The explosion was only meant to be a distraction before things got out of hand. They both get arrested and get off relatively easy as first-time offenders, but in order to make sure their lives aren’t ruined, they need to raise money for a competent lawyer before their next court hearing.

Mike wants to go to college so he can escape his trailer park upbringing, while Lennie is perfectly content going to trucking school and celebrating a blue-collar lifestyle. Realizing neither of them has much of a shot at moving forward until they get past this obstacle, they decide to rob cheap jewelry from neighboring trailer homes, hoping they can raise enough money to hire Ron, Lennie’s criminal grandfather, to represent them.

Sitting on the sidelines at first is Mike’s mother, Linda (Sean Young), who feels trapped in her own life after ruining her nursing career years earlier through her own reckless, youthful behavior.

While Linda doesn’t approve of the antics that landed Mike and Lennie in trouble in the first place, she refuses to let her son enter adult life at a disadvantage. Her wannabe pro-wrestler ex-husband Jim (Bob Koherr) doesn’t seem to care about Mike, or the fact that Linda has a relationship with a much younger man named Brian (Jason London), who just so happens to be the son of Sheriff Ross (Doug MacHugh), and also just so happens to be hung up on Sandy (Jaime Pressly), who just so happens to be dating Ron, complicating matters further than any sane person could reasonably imagine.

Total Insanity By The Third Act

The above rundown of Poor White Trash made me nauseous because it’s just too many names to keep straight. What’s even more anxiety-inducing is the fact that every single one of these characters pushes Mike, Lennie, and Linda’s adventure into completely unhinged territory. As all these side characters are introduced, our heroes graduate to robbing nursing homes and fast food restaurants, racking up a serious amount of dough while somehow evading authorities, even though they’re incredibly bad at what they do and, at one point, simply wear underwear over their faces to conceal their identities.

As Poor White Trash transforms into an all-out trailer park melee unlike anything you’ve ever seen, all I can say is, “Strap in and enjoy the ride,” because this movie never truly lets up. It’s low-brow humor executed with sophistication, allowing the more slapstick elements to land because the situational humor is so smart in the way it compounds and becomes increasingly overwhelming without ever making the viewer lose the plot.

Poor White Trash is rude, crude, and has just the right amount of ‘tude to be the perfect crime comedy to watch on a lazy summer day. It’s silly, it’s sexy, and somehow, everybody gets what they deserve … kind of.

To witness the spectacle, the drama, the fireworks, and the mayhem, you can stream Poor White Trash for free on Tubi as of this writing.