Dirty Work is a 1998 American buddy black comedy film directed by Bob Saget. Based on the short story "Vengeance is Mine Inc." by Roald Dahl, the film follows long-time friends Mitch (Norm Macdonald) and Sam (Artie Lange) who start a revenge-for-hire business, and work to fund heart surgery for Sam's father Pops (Jack Warden). When they take on work for an unscrupulous businessman (Christopher McDonald), in order to be paid, they create a revenge scheme of their own. Traylor Howard also stars and notable cameo appearances include Don Rickles, Rebecca Romijn, John Goodman, Gary Coleman, Chevy Chase, David Koechner, Chris Farley (in his final film appearance), and Adam Sandler as Satan.
The film was the first starring vehicle for Macdonald and Lange, and the directorial debut of Saget, coming one year after he left his long-running role as host of America's Funniest Home Videos.
Though Dirty Work received largely negative critical reviews upon its 1998 release and was a financial disappointment, it has since become a cult classic and has been reappraised more positively by some critics. Co-star Artie Lange later became a regular on The Howard Stern Show, where the film was sometimes discussed. A sequel was planned but ultimately canceled following both Macdonald and Saget's deaths in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
Plot
Growing up, friends Mitch Weaver and Sam McKenna are taught by Sam's hard-nosed father, "Pops" McKenna, not to "take crap from anyone". To that end, the pair plant a bunch of guns in a schoolyard bully's desk and have him arrested for gun possession; next, they catch a kid-fondling crossing guard in the act, after having applied Krazy Glue to the seat of Mitch's pants.
As adults, after losing fourteen jobs in three months and being dumped by his girlfriend, Mitch moves in with Sam and Pops, who then has a heart attack. In the hospital, Pops confides that, because of their parents' swinging lifestyle, he is also Mitch's father, meaning that Mitch and Sam are half-brothers. Even though Pops' heart is failing, Dr. Farthing, a hopeless gambler, will raise Mr. McKenna's position on the transplant waiting list if he is paid $50,000, to save himself from his bookie. Mitch and Sam get jobs in a cinema with an abusive manager and exact their revenge by showing Men In Black (Who Like To Have Sex With Each Other) to a packed house and get their manager fired. The other workers congratulate them and suggest they go into business.
Mitch and Sam open "Dirty Work", a revenge-for-hire business (the Dirty Work phone number is "555-0187", a fictitious number used later on Saturday Night Live.). Mitch falls for a woman named Kathy who works for a shady used car dealer. After publicly embarrassing the dealer during a live television commercial (Mitch: "Here’s another dead hooker in this trunk!"), the duo exacts increasingly lucrative reprisals for satisfied customers until they interfere with unscrupulous local property developer Travis Cole. Cole tricks them into destroying "his" apartment building (actually owned by Mr. John Kirkpatrick, the landlord), promising to pay them enough to save Pops. Afterwards, Cole reneges, revealing that he is not the owner and that he had them vandalize the building so that he could buy it cheaply, evict the tenants (including Kathy's grandmother), and build a parking lot for his beloved opera house. Unknown to Cole, Mitch's "note to self" mini-tape recorder captures this confession.
Mitch and Sam plot their revenge on Cole, using the tape to set up an elaborate trap. Using skunks, a loyal army of prostitutes, homeless men, a noseless friend, brownies with hallucinogenic additives, and Pops, they ruin the opening night of Don Giovanni, an opera sponsored prominently by Cole. With the media present, Mitch plays back Cole's confession over the theater's sound system. Cole sees that his public image is being tarnished and agrees to pay the $50,000. In the end, Cole is punched in the stomach, arrested and jailed, his dog is raped by a skunk, Pops gets his operation, and Mitch gets the girl. Dr. Farthing overcomes his gambling habit, but gets beaten to death by the bookies anyway. "That's it. Bye!"