As Shakes the Clown, Bobcat Goldthwait is first seen being urinated on by a small boy, after which Shakes vomits, belches, moans about his terrible hangover and prepares to face yet another day. It is difficult to imagine how the rest of Shakes's exploits could be of interest to anyone other than Mr. Goldthwait's close friends and relatives.
As written by Mr. Goldthwait (who also directed), it takes place in an all-clown universe where the local bar is called the Twisted Balloon and where one denizen complains that another "can't even throw a pie straight." The film's nonscatological humor pretty much begins and ends with that line.
[
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A964958260 ]
Much of the time people are just talking in the clown bar, or showing Shakes trying to keep making a living at birthday parties despite massive hangovers and rampaging alcoholism. The film really makes caricatures of the characters, except for Shakes himself who does have a certain level of humanity as he ultimately has to deal with his alcoholism.
[
http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/shakestc.php ]
Shakes is an alcoholic clown. If you think that's funny (which I do) the rest of the movie might strike you as rather humorous as well. The clowns in this film swear, take drugs, sleep with strangers and occasionally commit murder. It's a comedy, but clearly a very dark one. Tom Kenny, who plays Shakes' nemesis Binky, would give anybody a clown phobia. He's not a laughing on the outside, crying on the inside kind of clown. He's a seething on the outside, rotten on the inside kind of clown. I thought his performance here was very frightening. And since Shakes doesn't pull any punches, his portrayal of a villainous, evil clown was probably the best one of the movie.
[
http://www.mutantreviewers.com/rshakes.html ]
