The Jerk 1979

Janet Maslin, New York Times: The laughs aren't steady, but they're persistent, and the film moves fast enough to compensate for its unevenness. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: We get the sense at times that the cast and crew arrived at a location, found the script bankrupt of real laughs, and started looking around for funny props. Read more

John Skow, TIME Magazine: Its humor is successful and unsuccessful by turns, and although Comedian Carl Reiner is the director, the instinct here is to give most of both credit and blame to Martin. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: The comedy runs out of steam when the jerk makes good, but laugh for laugh it's probably a better investment than 10. Read more

Variety Staff, Variety: An artless, non-stop barrage of off-the-wall situations, funny and unfunny jokes, generally effective and sometimes hilarious sight gags and bawdy non sequiturs. Read more