Ernest Goes to Jail

The third film where Jim Varney reprised his role as Ernest P. Worrell is “Ernest Goes to Jail,” released in 1990. This time, Ernest is the accident-prone janitor of a bank who wants to be a bank teller one day and that’s where all the stuff starts. Does this sound familiar. Everything is so uninspired and in a strange turn of events, Ernest is selected for jury duty and what can be said as a doubtful comedy of errors is mistaken for criminal Felix Nash, also played by Varney. Nash thinks his luck is good for being a janitor at a bank, so while he’s planning to rob the bank, Ernest must find a way out of jail before he is given the chair as Nash. Ken said in his blog, “This film lacks any real laughs but seeing Varney volley back and forth between slackjawed Ernest and the cutthroat Nash is fun stuff.  So while I thought it was a fairly substandard comedy retread whattya the kids think? They loved it of course.”

This film is very weak. The story is a repeat of “Ernest Goes to Camp,” but without him interacting with kids. This is not up there but it has it’s moments and is worth seeing only to see Varney switch when he plays the criminal Nash.

I didn’t enjoy this film at all. I don’t know anyone who would. Unless they find some sort of enjoyment and entertainment in this film, fine, but I don’t think there is anything about this film that would be worth checking out. If you have seen the Ernest films, this one can be skipped over and nothing will be missed.

Tomorrow I will be looking at another short that is probably a classic in “Disney Month 2024.”