The Pest Reviews

Make no mistake, this is a lousy movie: a cheap-looking, poorly paced comedy loosely based on Richard Connell's classic (and frequently ripped-off) short story "The Most Dangerous Game." That said, it also marks the first time the considerably talented John Leguizamo has been given the solo spotlight in a major Hollywood feature, and for that reason alone it deserves a little notice. Leguizamo stars as Pestario "Pest" Vargas, a hyperactive Miami scam artist who unwittingly agrees to play human prey to a sadistic human hunter (Jeffrey Jones). It's a role tailor-made for Leguizamo's shape-shifting brand of comedy: In order to escape his predators, Pest assumes a variety of disguises, including an Orthodox Jew, an Japanese karaoke singer and a deeply Afrocentric African-American. And what Leguizamo does is truly ethnic humor -- he pokes fun at the way ethnicity and difference are represented, not so much playing stereotypes for laughs as playing them off them for laughs. Even surrounded by unbearable sloppiness, Leguizamo is fascinating to watch. In fact, this feeble film can barely contain him: You aren't rooting for him to elude Jones; you're rooting for him to escape from the movie altogether and find something worthy of his gifts.