Dirty Work was supposed to be the movie that would propel Saturday Night Live’s Norm MacDonald to movie stardom. Sadly, it didn’t work out that way, with the film only earning a modest $10 million theatrically. One of the reasons the movie tanked was that, at the eleventh hour, the studio forced director Bob Saget (yes – THAT Bob Saget) to recut what had been planned as a raunchy R-rated comedy to a PG-13, much more mainstream effort. This was a big mistake as MacDonald wasn’t Adam Sandler, and this mean-spirited movie about petty revenge and scheming was never meant to be a family flick.
Even still, despite the cutdown there were still some pretty funny scenes in the movie, and when it hit VHS and cable, it became a bit of a cult hit. With both MacDonald and Saget having passed away, the good folks at Vinegar Syndrome have undertaken a massive restoration of the film, and have re-assembled the original, unrated cut and are releasing it to 4K Blu-ray Disc this June. The unrated cut only runs one minute longer than the theatrical cut, but it apparently contains a lot of alternate footage, as when Saget made the PG-13 version, he used a lot of alternate takes, jokes, and tame deleted footage for the cut. Thus, the two versions are distinct. As a bonus, there’s also a 2-hour assembly cut of the movie being included, although it was sourced from the best possible elements, which, in this case, is an old VHS transfer. This assembly cut was never meant to be released, so it’s being included as more of a curiosity.
Here are the rest of the extras (courtesy of our friends at Blu-Ray.com)
Also, kudos to the label for making what most be the most disgusting 4K Blu-ray cover of all time:
UUUUURGH. Will you add this one to your shelf? Let us know in the comments!