ukedge87
Posts: 502
Joined: 14/10/2005
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This film falls slap in the middle of Adam Sandler’s transitional period, somewhere between his ‘dumb’ comedy films (think Billy Madison to Big Daddy) and his ‘acting’ gigs (Punch Drunk Love, Reign Over Me), and despite this film never really getting started, it probably wasn’t a bad idea. It proved he could handle emotionally complex characters and non-character driven pieces (plus his trademark screech of anger is, for the first time, missing); without this he could not have gone for the scripts that have added his name to the list of silly comedians who have proved they can act.
Sadly, despite that sugar coating in hindsight, this film is still a bitter pill to swallow. It’s not the bloated running time, the snail pace script or the unfunny jokes that make it a frustrating watch; it’s the fact that as a viewer you can tell there is a good film buried underneath the mess that makes it so frustrating. The tale of losing one’s culture and the constant compromises immigrants make in a foreign land is lost somewhere in this drab portrayal of affluent America.
The redeeming aspects are slim, Cloris Leachman‘s quick witted and best-line-hogging mother in law is spot-on, as are the lead cast’s attempt to wiggle a good film out of the script. However, the over-all effect of this film is frustration, frustration that there is a good film many layers below. But as I said in my opening paragraph, perhaps this was a necessary evil to show Hollywood that Sandler can do more than yell, punch people and act drunk really well.
4/10
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