This Deranged 2000s Slapstick Comedy Is Perfect For Jack Black Fans

One of the most stressful things about revisiting a movie you used to watch a whole bunch in your youth is the prospect of it aging like milk in the sun. Comedy, in particular, is perhaps the most susceptible genre to turning rancid long after its expiration date. In that respect, "Saving Silverman" is a product of its time, with a wildly deranged comedy plot centered around a kidnapping, but God help me, it still makes me laugh. Let the record show that I'm not here to hail "Happy Gilmore" director Dennis Dugan as some kind of secretly brilliant filmmaker. But I do, however, think the dark humor prevalent throughout this critically panned early 2000s comedy wrung a lot more laughs out of me than I anticipated. Not to mention the film also has Jack Black with a sage piece of advice in "if you get the nachos stuck together, that's one nacho."

"Saving Silverman" centers around three best friends who have known each other since they were kids. Darren Silverman (Jason Biggs), Wayne Leferssier (Steve Zahn), and J.D. McNugent (Jack Black) are not only still close buds years later, but they've also formed a Neil Diamond cover band together. Nothing in the world could ever separate them, that is, until Darren starts a relationship with the incredibly beautiful Judith Snodgrass-Fessbeggler (Amanda Peet), who's all but taken complete control of his life. With the surprise arrival of Darren's high school crush, Sandy Perkus (Amanda Detmer), coming back to town, big-brained geniuses Wayne and J.D. propose kidnapping Judith to push Darren towards his true love.

If there was ever an early 2000s comedy in which all of its main characters should rightfully be in jail by the end, it's "Saving Silverman."

On its face, "Saving Silverman" should be a misogynistic disaster considering it's largely about two slobs trying to save their third from his terrible girlfriend so he can go out with the nice girl (who's training to become a nun) he's always dreamed of. Judith is written as an emotionally manipulative psychologist who not only makes Darren torch his Neil Diamond records, but can revoke his ... ahem ... self-soothing privileges at the drop of a hat. But against all odds, this winning ensemble does a great job at wringing humor out of its many horrifying scenarios. Everyone in "Saving Silverman" is such a caricature that it's difficult to take them even remotely seriously.

Only in the early 2000s could you propose a studio comedy in which there's a prolonged sequence where two men quietly break into a woman's house so they can temporarily chain her up in their basement in the name of love. It's thanks to the incredibly funny Peet that Black and Zahn's characters come across as even bigger idiots. Judith not only knows how to easily get under their skin without even trying, but she lays the slapstick beatdown on them every opportunity she gets. It would make an entertainingly twisted double feature with "Bugonia."

The bouts of dark humor in "Saving Silverman" can also be found in a hilarious running gag with everyone's aversion to true love coming about because their partners were killed in such over-the-top ways. There's even a demented sequence involving Black and Zahn grave-robbing a dead body, putting it into Judith's car, and careening it over the side of a cliff, where the only thing they lament is J.D. losing his favorite jacket in the wreckage.

"He's my puppet, and I'm his puppet master" is ironically how writers Hank Nelken and Greg DePaul see Biggs in this. The "American Pie" star is little more than a blank slate plot catalyst to give Black and Zahn, the real stars of "Saving Silverman," room to go buckwild. Their incredible chemistry really gives the impression that they've been besties for years. J.D. and Wayne are so comically ill-equipped to handle their predicament that the sight of them holding a pistol together is enough to make me burst out laughing. Black even gets some of the best line readings with "you've been pinching loaves on the law? I play croquet out there" and "I think I see something in the back of the refri ... in the back of the closet." It's a shame, however, that these two didn't do a string of comedies together, with their big screen reunion being the dreadful "Anaconda" reboot over 24 years later.

The funniest character might actually be "Full Metal Jacket" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" star R. Lee Ermey as the trio's former high school football coach. "The victim's whiny family's protesting," he hilariously says in response to accidentally murdering a referee with a flag pole for refusing to call a touchdown.

If there's any kind of thematic read to make of "Saving Silverman," it's that these characters will go to incredible lengths to hold onto some form of security even though it clearly makes them unhappy. Whether you check out the PG-13 or slightly longer R-rated versions, one thing's for sure: this slapstick farce will be coming at "yeaaaaahaaaaaa."

"Saving Silverman" is currently streaming on Tubi.