Screwed

A low-brow dognapping caper comedy, Screwed is not only unfunny and nearly plotless, it's also dull, dull, dull. Saturday Night Live alum Norm MacDonald (a funny guy but a lousy actor) plays a brow-beaten chauffeur who plots to ransom the treasured lapdog of his harping dowager employer (Elaine Stritch). Dave Chappelle is his Black Thang-shtick best friend, and Danny DeVito is a twisted, troll-like mortician recruited to aid in a cover-up when the dognapping backfires. All of them look positively embarrassed. Co-written and co-directed by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (they wrote Ed Wood, The People Vs. Larry Flynt and Man on the Moon) without a whiff of the talent they've previously shown. Not recommended. (R. Blackwelder)