REVIEW: That’s Not My Dog! no laughing matter for Shane Jacobson and unfunny buddies

REVIEW: A poster for this sad old excuse for a movie promises “the greatest jokes ever told ... get told!” — that ain’t quite the case here, with most of the gags very old and rundown.

THAT’S NOT MY DOG! (M)

Rating: one star (1 out of 5)

Director: Dean Murphy (Strange Bedfellows)

Starring: Shane Jacobson, Paul Hogan, Jimeoin, Tim Ferguson, Lehmo, Marty Fields.

Rolls over, plays dead ... very convincingly.

A poster for this sad old excuse for a movie promises “the greatest jokes ever told ... get told!”

That ain’t quite the case with That’s Not My Dog!

Paul Hogan cranks out a laugh in a scene from That's Not My Dog!

This purports to be a filmed document of a party where (according to a promo blurb) Shane Jacobson invited “the funniest people he knows” to “come armed with nothing but the funniest jokes they’ve ever heard.”

On the evidence presented here, only one of two conclusions can be drawn : (1) if these are the funniest people Jacobson knows, he needs to get out more often; or (2) if these are the funniest jokes these people have ever heard, they need to get their hearing checked straight away.

Shane Jacobson tells a joke and Michelle Banas weeps in a scene from That's Not My Dog!

Most gags are very old, rundown and have seen better days. Some jaded jokesters lazily try to renovate them with a bonus swear word or two, which just makes them all the more decrepit.

Speaking of lazy, word must go out to any potential viewers of That’s Not My Dog! who might be sucked in by another dodgy promise being floated as a publicity hook.

Yes, there is indeed an average of “a joke per minute” delivered across the hour-and-a-half duration of the movie.

However, the numbers have been artificially inflated by recurring scenes where the same two comics whip through one-liners so weak (“You’ve really got to hand it to blind prostitutes!”) they would not have cut it as dad jokes a century ago.

Jimeoin thinks about how much he’s getting paid to tell some tired old jokes in a scene from That's Not My Dog!

The brief gaps between yarns are filled with cutaways to logos belonging to the producer’s promotional partners, and also excerpts from zestless live music performances on the evening from the likes of Adam Brand, Joe Camilleri, Russell Morris and Dan Kelly.

All involved in this poorly stocked yard sale of discontinued humour laugh at each other’s punchlines with the rehearsed good cheer of those who have been paid just enough to do so on cue.

Oh, the hilarity .....

That’s Not My Dog! is now showing for a (mercifully) limited season until Sunday March 18th.