(WARNING! This analysis contains LETHAL LEVELS OF TRANSPHOBIA! Literally what the FUCK!)
I have wanted to review Ace Ventura for a long, long time. I mean, this was part of Jim Carrey’s break into the big time alongside Dumb & Dumber and The Mask, two films I wouldn’t hesitate to call comedy classics. But then there’s Ace Ventura, a film many would say sits alongside those… and to a degree, it does. The titular character may be one of the funniest and most awesome film protagonists ever made, and for the most part it is a genuinely funny comedic mystery.
But then comes the twist.
The villain of the film is revealed to be Lois Einhorn, a cop that Ace had been working with. But that’s not actually the real twist. No, the real twist is that Einhorn is disgraced football player Ray Finkle… and thus, a man. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the problem here.
Finkle/Einhorn has long been considered one of the most transphobic characters in 90s media, and it is genuinely hard to disagree. But is there anything of value to them? Is this character really as bad as people say? Well, I’m going to tell you how I feel, though two things need to be kept in mind. First, I’m a cis guy. I am going to be upfront and say I agree this character is horribly problematic, but I definitely recommend seeking out what actual trans people have to say about Finkle as well (this video’s a good place to start). Second, I’m going to be using “They/Them” pronouns for Finkle. I’m doing this mainly because the movie is wildly unclear about how they view their own gender identity, and it’s actually unclear if they’re actually trans or just so insane they’ve gone to the biggest extremes to disguise themselves as a woman for their vengeance since, you know, the movie doesn’t particularly care about their gender identity beyond it being a vehicle for mockery.
Now, let’s go ahead and open this big ol’ can of worms...
Motivation/Goals: Finkle’s motivation is where they really shine, because it’s genuinely insane and amazing. They ended up being shunned by society and disgraced after a screw up that cost the Miami Dolphins the Super Bowl, and went completely insane from the derision. This led to them concocting an absurdly complicated plan that involved the kidnapping of the team’s mascot, rising through the ranks of the police department, and assuming the name of a dead hiker, all to kidnap and kill their former teammate Dan Marino for his role in their fumble. It’s so brilliantly batshit!
Oh, and they decide to unndergo a sex change as part of this scheme. It’s done as tastefully as you can imagine a 90s comedy would do.
Performance: Blade Runner’s Sean Young plays Finkle-as-Einhorn (and even portrays Finkle in a photograph back when they were a man). Whatever problems this character has, I don’t think it’s completely fair to blame them on Young; she does a relatively good job playing a comedic femme fatale villain when it comes right down to it. If the writing were better, this could easily be a career highlight for her. Alas, that’s not the world we live in.
Final Fate: They get arrested. I guess it’s better than them getting killed? They were in a room full of cops, it was the early 90s, and they are presenting as a woman while being assigned male at birth. It is genuinely a miracle that the worst thing that happened to them is that they were sexually harassed by Jim Carrey.
Evilness: This is the tricky one. On the one hand, Finkle has quite a list of genuine crimes under their belt: Murder, kidnapping, attempted murder, animal abuse… They might also be responsible for the death of the original Lois Einhorn, but it’s extremely ambiguous and I’m not going to hold it against them. On the other hand, Finkle’s downfall and subsequent shunning by their own hometown to the point their life was destroyed and they were driven insane is so over-the-top in how cruel it is that it’s kind of hard not to feel a little bit of sympathy for them. Like hell, I think I’d go batshit insane too ifI got treated like that for a mistake that was out of my hands! The narrative is trying to say they should score a 4 or even 5, but I think they’re more around a 3, a tragic villain who was driven to madness. It’s certainly a high three because it’s hard to excuse some of their worse actions, but I’m feeling a little more lenient towards them than the movie is.
Worst Scene: The big gender reveal at the end, of course.
Let’s ignore that dolphins have been observed having gay sex before. Let’s also ignore there is a non-zero chance that someone on the police force isn’t totally straight; there was a cop in the Village People for a reason, after all. Setting all that aside, this just isn’t fucking funny. It’s just a tasteless, bottom-of-the-barrel gag cranked up to eleven. I know the 90s weren’t the most enlightened years, but this is still excessive, especially since this is the gag the entire movie’s central mystery builds up to.
Final Thoughts & Score: There is so much to unpack here. Like, unbelievable amounts. This is a villain in a fucking detective comedy film, this really shouldn’t have to be so goddamn hard to talk about!
This character is just so stuffed full of offensive stereotypes that there is genuinely no charitable read for them. Looking at what the film is laying out for you, we have a man who has gone to insane lengths to disguise themselves as a woman for their revenge scheme, the sort of lengths that are usually reserved for people who are actually trans. So this isn’t even straightforward transphobia, it’s invoking the “trap” stereotype. For those of you blessed with ignorance, the “trap” is a nasty stereotype of trans woman that essentially believes they are a man disguised as a woman looking to rape unsuspecting men. It’s a pretty vile term that was and still is pretty popular among the coomer crowd, so yeah, not a good look when your character is what 4channers were calling Bridget Guilty Gear for years.
But hey, maybe the transphobia is just accidental! Even the director has said the intended joke with stuff like Ace barfing after discovering the truth is meant to be a dig at how fragile his masculinity really is if he falls to pieces over something like kissing a man! So instead of transphobia, the joke is… homophobia! Yay? This excuse doesn’t even hold water when the entire police force and the fucking dolphin barf at the big reveal too.
All of this is bad enough, but here’s the kicker: Aside from that massive, glaring flaw, Finkle is actually a genuinely good villain for a story like this. Their plan is insane and convoluted, perfectly fitting into a comedic narrative, but they’re also a genuinely threatening villain when they need to be. But this just makes it all the worse, because they took this good idea, wrapped it up in the sort of shit Joanne Rowling writes for her crappy detective novels, and then made it the punchline the whole movie builds up to.
If it weren’t for the exaggerated 90s bigotry the character is steeped in, I think they’d be a really solid bad guy who would likely deserve a score at least as high as Buffalo Bill got. But the existence of the novel that elaborates on Bill’s whole deal, the (admittedly minor) efforts of the movie to deny Bill is trans and is merely insane and delusional, and the fact he is played entirely seriously and is not the butt of jokes make him far more defensible than Finkle is.
I don’t think there’s ever been a twist villain that so thoroughly decimates the quality of the film they’re in. Bellwether didn’t ruin Zootopia, Hans didn’t ruin Frozen, and Roy Burns didn’t ruin Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. But Finkle? They fucking tank Ace Ventura, and it didn’t have to be this way. There are plenty of ways to have a character pretend to be a woman and have it be tasteful and funny; Bugs Bunny is a queer icon for a reason, and movies like Some Like It Hot and Mrs. Doubtfire, while obviously not perfect, manage to be a lot more tasteful in their jokes. But here, they just aim right for the bottom of the barrel.
With how times have changed, I think it’s genuinely easy to read them as a sympathetic character, provided you can look past the murder and homicidal revenge of course (something easy to do when you remember what caused them to snap). When the movie is doing all it can to demonize and humiliate them for not conforming to gender norms as opposed to ridiculing them for the sheer absurd lengths they’re going to for revenge or the fact they literally fucking killed someone, it’s hard not to take their side. The narrative is already against them for the stupidest reasons, so why dogpile them? You go, girl! You can have a little murder and kidnapping, as a treat.
I’ve gotta give them a 0.5/10. And that .5 is pretty much only because aside from the horrible twist, they’re honestly not a bad villain and there’s actually a lot of great foreshadowing that they’re behind the dolphin kidnapping. It really is just the gender reveal thing that not only completely ruins the character, but torpedoes the movie too. Ace Ventura is probably one of the best characters ever, and one of Carrey’s best performances alongside Truman and Robotnik, but he’s stuck debuting in a film where the big joke is “queers are fucking freaks lmao.” What a sick joke.
Before we travelled back up North for 2 days, we went to The 02 and stopped by Lids Outlet and found what could be a rarity after looking online and not finding them anyway a Ace Ventura Finkle jersey, obviously it's not official and based on the Ray Finkle Miami Dolphins jersey but I'm happy with it regardless.
I've never even heard of Classic Reels.
I spotted it, grabbed it, ran to my partner, shoved it in her face and said "Hi I'm looking for Ray Finkle.... And a clean pair of shorts"
Just found that it's apparently a Halloween range from 2022
With just over a minute to go in the game, Colts K Adam Vinatieri missed the possible game-winning field goal, a 43-yarder, as they lose to the Steelers 26-24.
