Cast: Jerry Springer, Jaime Pressly, Molly Hagan, William McNamara, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Michael Jai White, Michael Dudikoff, Dawn Maxey, Ashely Holbrook
Director: Neil Abramson
Producers: Steve Stabler, Gary Goldstein, Gina Rugolo-Judd, Brent Baum, Brad Jenkel
Screenplay: Jon Bernstein
Cinematography: Russell Lyster
Music: Kennard Ramsey
U.S. Distributor: Artisan Entertainment
Whatever else he may or may not be, Jerry Springer is a master of self-promotion. How else could one explain Ringmaster, which is nothing more than a 90-minute commercial for his overhyped, three-ring circus of a television show? This movie, like the program that spawned it, is pure, unadulterated exploitation - a pandering to the most base instincts in all of us. Sadly, although Ringmaster doesn't hide its intentions or pretend to be something other than what it is, it doesn't do the job well. In many ways, the movie is too tame. Those looking for something raunchy and outrageous will be disappointed, which limits the potential audience to die-hard Springer addicts desperate for a fix.
In preparation for seeing this movie, I watched a week's worth of "The Jerry Springer Show". While I'm willing to admit that the program has a prurient appeal, the attraction wears thin quickly. The "guests" are more like bad actors than real people, making "The Jerry Springer Show" seem like the WWF of talk shows. People obviously like it, though. The ratings are consistently high, Springer is popular, and the show has been around for about eight years. It's not some flash-in-the-pan, like "The Morton Downey Jr. Show", which, during the late-'80s, experienced a meteoric rise and equally spectacular fall.
Ringmaster's premise is shaky. It's about the goings-on behind the scenes of TV's top-rated talk program, "The Jerry Show". Springer plays a character who is basically himself, while a group of professional actors take on the roles of his assistants and dysfunctional guests. I suppose the script's aim is to give viewers a glimpse into the lives of the people who appear on Jerry's show, but the characters are so badly-written and ineptly-acted that they're not even momentarily believable. Another aim of Ringmaster is to offer a candid look at Jerry when he's not on camera. What we see isn't promising: Springer is either a boring, shallow moron or a bad actor.
Topics on "The Jerry Show" range from "You Did What with Your Stepdaddy?" to "My Traitor Girlfriends." Guests include 35 year-old Connie Zorak (Molly Hagan); her husband, Rusty (Michael Duikoff); her 19 year-old daughter, Angel (Jaime Pressly); and Angel's fiance, Willie (Ashley Holbrook). Rusty and Angel have been fooling around regularly behind Connie's back, so, to get her revenge, she seduces Willie. Then, when she tells the story to two of Jerry's producers, Troy (William MacNamara) and Natalie (Dawn Maxey), they are offered a free trip to L.A. and fifteen minutes of fame.
Meanwhile, Starletta (Wendy Raquel Robinson) is about to appear on the "My Traitor Girlfriends" segment, along with her constantly unfaithful boyfriend, Demond (Michael Jai White), and a couple of her friends who slept with him. However, when Connie, Angel, Starletta, and Demond are thrown together in the same room, sparks fly. Mother and daughter compete to see who can get Demond into bed first, and Starletta plots revenge against both of them. And, as all this is going on, Jerry watches with a bemused expression (it's really the only expression he wears throughout the entire film).
The screenplay is bumbling, badly-focused, and unsure what it wants to do: parody "The Jerry Springer Show", show how things work on the other side of the camera, or defend the host. The comedy is mostly unfunny, the behind-the-scenes stuff isn't insightful, and Springer's "heartfelt" speech about why he does what he does is laughable. (I would have respected him if he had come out and said it's for the fame and money; his contention that he's serving some sort of socially important role is insulting.) When it comes to continuity and production values, Ringmaster is lacking. For example, in one scene, we see Jerry sign a tee-shirt with the inscription "To Connie, Thanks. Love Jerry." Moments later, the message has mysteriously changed - "Love" is gone and the other words have re-located to different parts of the shirt.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Ringmaster is how unappealing Springer is. The confidence and charisma he exudes on TV are entirely absent in this medium, where he is constantly groping for something familiar. Where's the energy and passion? Fans will spend much of the movie wondering if they're watching an impostor (Perhaps "Alien Lookalike Pretends to be Talkshow Host"). To make matters worse, Springer doesn't get any help from his supporting players, who are every bit as lifeless as he is.
Although Springer is obviously the driving force behind the film, he's not the only culprit. Equal blame must be given to once-promising director Neil Abramson, whose previous feature, Without Air, won an award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival. Two years later, this is where Abramson has ended up. Then there's Artisan Entertainment, the distributor of such offbeat fare as Pi, Open Your Eyes, and The Cruise, which apparently mistook Ringmaster for an opportunity to make a box office splash.
The shocking failure of Ringmaster causes me to ask an obvious question: why did the film makers choose this approach instead of doing a straight behind-the-scenes documentary. Approached using a style not unlike Madonna's Truth or Dare, that might have captured my interest for a couple of hours. I am curious about what goes on backstage at Springer's show, and what the man is really like when he isn't posturing. Sadly, neither of those aspects are given any serious play in Ringmaster. Instead, we're forced to endure 90 minutes of bad actors reciting laughable lines from an embarrassing script. It's fitting that this movie is making its theatrical debut on Thanksgiving weekend - it's a real turkey.
© 1998 James Berardinelli