“Reign Over Me” (2007)
A well-intentioned drama about 9/11 post traumatic syndrome and friendship, 2007’s “Reign Over Me,” is ultimately a maddeningly uneven effort that stumbles often over its own clumsiness while trying to tell the story of one man’s recovery with authenticity and dignity and instead dialing up phoniness. Don Cheadle plays a family man dentist who desperately needs release from his controlling wife (Jada Pinkett). And he finds it in Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler), an ex-college roommate who lost his family in the 9/11 tragedy. Cheadle’s Alan Johnson hasn’t heard from Charlie in years, but in a chance meeting in New York, the two old friends are reunited. Suffering from brutal PTS, Sandler’s Charlie is deeply troubled, withdrawn and refuses to talk about his past life. Sandler puts in a mostly admirable performance, but neither filmmaker Mike Binder’s lame script and poor direction does him much help and eventually the bad, cloying and clumsy movie overshadows every performance. Much like the classic rock music the movie is desperate to shoehorn in at every turn — you can just picture Binder writing the screenplay to half this music and pumping his fists with self-approval — Sandler generally has two notes: the meek, mumbly half and the loud, angry, outraged half which borders on an outburst out of… well, an Adam Sandler movie. Despite the two notes, the goofy, Bob Dylan-inspired hair and the dialogue that makes him incessantly reference Springsteen, The Pretenders, Jackson Browne, et al (the movie is titled after a Who song that is covered poorly in the credits by Pearl Jam), Sandler feels like he’s sincerely in it to win it. So much so that you wish a more nuanced director would have taken the basic skeleton of this movie, rewritten it and given Sandler and all the characters a bit more honesty and dignity to work with. [C-]
“Spanglish” (2004)
Like “Reign Over Me,” it’s unfortunate and disappointing that when Adam Sandler finally puts down the silly character and voices for a minute and attempts honest sincerity, the movies often fail him. Such is the case with 2004’s “Spanglish,” another movie where Sandler delivers a thoughtful, restrained and subdued performance that is mostly all for naught in a sea of shrill female characters. James L. Brooks is lauded the world over for his films; he practically invented the dramedy with movies that artfully tap into the dramatically funny moments of life and the hilariously painful ones as well. But with a knack for unpleasant characters and broad sitcomy affinities, both proclivities tend to unravel his films (arguably going back as far as “As Good As It Gets”). About a Hispanic woman, Paz Vega, (and her daughter) who becomes the housemaid for a wealthy Caucasian family — led by the monster of a shallow matriarch played by Tea Leoni, who might just be the most horrible mother ever committed to screen — “Spanglish” says some interesting things about class lines and divides, but it’s also trying to say a mouthful about mothers, marriages, identity, careers, family, daughters and mother relationships and children. And Brooks simply can’t sustain it all with a screenplay that is brutally honest in some moments and then hamfisted and dishonest in others, to the point where it inadvertently becomes an unfortunate misogynist melodrama (the grandma is an alcoholic, the mother is vile, selfish control freak, the maid is a proud, hot tempered Latina who doesn’t want the White Lady to parent her daughter). Off in the corner, left of these various hot messes is Adam Sandler as the successful, but unappreciated husband; a mensch who has to try to navigate his family chaos. It’s a decent performance, Sandler relaxed and at ease is at his most likable. And Tea Leoni’s character is so narcissistically wretched, you empathize with him and it’s understandable why an ill-conceived third act romance with the maid is necessary if only to give the man a shred of his dignity back. But “Spanglish” is far too muddled, broad and unpleasant and he’s completely overshadowed. Not to mention the movie is totally offensive and counterfeit in its exploitation of multicultural social commentary for its own cuddly and phony attempts at feel-goodery. [C-]
