We’d like to be eloquent and dance around this, but an intervention has to happen. This Adam Sandler thing was cute when it started, then became mildly tolerable, devolving into a disaster in front of our very eyes, one that a collection of glazed-over eyeballs nationwide have sworn by. Fame seems to strike all popular comedians to the point where their intentions sometimes go beyond “having a laugh” into trying to send “important messages” to their audience and/or ego trip paychecks for transparently subpar work, and it’s now hit the beloved village idiot responsible for jackass touchstones like “Happy Gilmore.”
But make no mistake about it, while some comedic legends were forced into these positions, Sandler is nothing if not self-made. Cultivating a consistent persona as an emotionally-stunted manchild, he successfully translated to cinema as a clown willing to use an assortment of silly faces and voices in order to get a laugh. In the second phase of his career, Sandler unsuccessfully grafted this persona into a series of “average joes” in high concept pieces of piffle that audiences ate up anyway. We’re now knee-deep into Stage Three, the self-commentary, which reaches its nadir in the Sandler-penned “Grown Ups.” The happy, mentally-slow scamp behind “Operaman” has grown up to make his very own “The Big Chill.”
In “Grown Ups,” Sandler and his four boyhood best friends, basketball champions from back in their pre-teen years, reunite after the passing of their coach. All have become fabulously wealthy, despite the sub-working class ribbing they give each other about marriage, weight gain and aging, and they all apparently earn enough to take more than a few days off at a local cabin. Despite a brief early scene, we never get the importance of this coach, nor do we understand why this would be such a memorable moment in the lives of five ostensibly very successful fortysomethings. We’re not nearly as accomplished as these men, who have supermodel wives and massive suburban homes, and we can’t remember anything about the sports we played back in grade school, though these characters are not unlike the assholes you met when you were young who lied when they told you being a kid is “the best time of your life.” If we did, we’d probably remember more than four other players on our team, but director Dennis Dugan shoots basketball like it’s a new, geography-less alien hobby, so that’s probably irrelevant.
The friends all behave in a sad semi-commentary on their careers, essentially playing themselves for the sake of a Happy Madison paid vacation. At this juncture it’s pointless to discuss a Sandler performance, but at least it’s worth citing he still dresses like a 10 year old. David Spade comes off the best as the cast member who couldn’t be bothered to give a shit, playing an alcoholic and (unlikely) over-the-hill horndog who can get away with wearing a headband and a basketball jersey in the pool around grown adults. Rob Schneider plays his New Age spaceman at different volumes because he’s seriously not a real actor, while Chris Rock is forced to undermine his own natural sarcasm with repeated fake sincerity to suggest he knows he’s making himself more palatable for a wide audience. And then there’s the tragic Kevin James, here mostly to supply a target for the film’s endless succession of fat jokes; the underlying truth about him being diabetic is laughed off….as is most of the film, including any potential dramatic conflicts.
“Grown Ups” is fascinating, because Sandler and Dugan clearly know how to milk compelling character situations out of the setting of a lakeside cabin (which looks more like a Holiday Inn than a cabin any of us have ever seen), but the film has an almost Pavlovian response to avoiding serious dramatic heft, immediately cutting away before anyone would face serious repercussions. When the overweight James decides to use a rope tied to a tree to swing over the lake, he plummets 10 feet to the ground and lands on his neck before flopping in all directions, the violent impact clearly being enough to seriously injure someone. Like all violent moments in Sandler’s body of work, James springs up unharmed. James’ certain brush with death, not an amusing or prolonged moment, is never mentioned again, nor is the bird that he crushed underneath him, which Sandler’s daughter, petrified by death, easily cares for offscreen. The scene is a microcosm of every dramatic venue the film purposely avoids.
Sandler’s “average joe” persona (the type of thing Armond White loves because he considers it “class consciousness” — if there’s a God, his will be the only legit positive review of this) never seemed to work because of the outsized, cartoonish details of Sandler’s onscreen jobs and families and his natural boyishness. Here, he plays a Hollywood agent, one that can apparently vanish for a few days without contacting clients Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and his main conflict seems to be refusing to admit to his friends he has a personal maid (who is Asian, and therefore not a person of value), while also placating his materialistic, bitchy wife.
That might sound harsh, but it’s the film’s judgment and not ours. Women in “Grown Ups” are leered at, laughed at, or hated, sometimes in that order. If you’re old, your sexual facilities will be mocked, if you’re unhappy you’re liable to be unreasonable, and if you’re young, you’re an easily manipulated sex object for the star of “Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star” to gawk at. Salma Hayek, here married to Sandler (ha!), plays a domineering career woman desperate to make a trip to Milan. Maria Bello, married to James (what?) faces the indignity of being reduced to a set of superhuman mammaries. Maya Rudolph, deserving better, at least takes advantage of a few improv moments to register signs of life, while Joyce Van Patten, as Schneider’s elderly wife, is around for more than a few “ew” moments. Personally, we’re less offended imagining she’s sexually active than we are seeing Rob Schneider’s face. There’s also an old sassy black grandmother with giant bunions making sitcom quips while two other stock hot girls traipse around in bikinis, contrasted with a third, more homely girl, to drive home the point that if you’re in your twenties, ladies, be hot or else.
“Grown Ups” is largely plotless, dreadfully paced as if it were Sandler himself absentmindedly behind the camera. Dennis Dugan has some sort of reputation as a box office performer having directed Sandler in “Happy Gilmore” and “Big Daddy,” but he’s really not needed for this Sony paid vacation, a far more questionable example of big stars expecting audiences to compensate them for their time off goofing around than “Couples Retreat.” Would you believe whatever stews beneath the surface of character interactions is resolved by a scene where a treacly score is played over characters making speeches before a big group hug? The climactic emotional scene finds everyone standing on a dock and talking at each other, a nightmare of blocking, dialogue, acting and scoring that inconceivably made the final cut. It hammers home the point that a good 90% of this film is exactly like the interminable end portion of “Click.” If you’ve seen that piece of shit, that might be all you need to know.
That isn’t the end of the film, of course, as Sandler and his goons find themselves in a basketball rematch with their opponents from years ago. This crew, fronted by a thin, irritated Colin Quinn, is meant to reflect a working class background, which comes into play when Sandler actually tries to leave a message to his audience: lower-to-middle class people should be condescended to, because sometimes they need to “win one.” It’s an awesomely naive sentiment in a substance-less piece of garbage. You half-wonder if the whole thing is a joke, the punchline being that everyone in the movie eventually dies in a horrible explosion.
It’s especially galling to see Sandler accept this easy paycheck to just bum around with the friends he’s been doing favors for every year. Shame too that he picked the wrong friends — it actively hurts to see Tim Meadows show up at the very end when he’s far more talented than either Schneider or Spade. Add to that a wordless cameo by Norm MacDonald and a probably-good-spirited but unfunny bit with Steve Buscemi, and it’s clear Sandler’s a lousy judge of talent. After “Punch Drunk Love” and “Funny People” Sandler seemed ready to observe the contradictions of his screen presence and the constant reality of creating whiny and precious boy characterizations. “Grown Ups” adds a dollop of class contempt to his fiery anti-intellectualism, multiplied by four listless Sandlerbots pitching the story to the cheap seats. You’ve had enough warnings, America. If you want to pay for “Grown Ups,” with its fart and fat jokes and complete contempt for women, the middle class and the elderly, you’ve given everyone proof you’re someone of no value. We’d recommend you jump off a bridge instead this weekend. [F]