Anger Management (2002)

Anger Management (2002)

 3/10

 

Starring

Adam Sandler

Jack Nicholson

Marisa Tomei

 

Directed by Peter Segal

 

Anger Management was a movie I saw way back then and I never recall seeing it again after seeing it like once. I recall many of the things that happened it, I recall the incident in the ending and how it was all set to make Dave (Adam Sandler) a better person and stand-up for himself and not hold everything in, but that was it for me.

Seeing the movie again in 2022 I can say this is a very boring, unfunny movie that made less sense than it tried to. The whole idea could have best been done if they made Buddy (Jack Nicholson) normal. I even think the movie would have been funnier if everyone around Dave acted normally. The over exaggeration of characters and the portrayal of Buddy as a man who uses unorthodox methods to treat his patience would have made more sense if it was toned down a lot, not a little, but a lot.

There is no celebration to be had for the story or the acting, everything about this movie comes across like one of those bad hallmark movies which you are forced to watch because you have a guest who is easily entertained by ridiculousness.

The movie starts with a pushover named Dave who is in a great relationship with Linda (Marisa Tomei). He wa0s on a work trip when things got out of hand quickly. First his seat was taken, and he had to find another which led him to sit next to Buddy. While sited Buddy kept disturbing him during the flight with his laughing and later asking Dave to join him in watching the inflight movie. Dave asked the flight-attendant for headphones, and she over-reacted which led to Dave getting sentenced to 20 hours of anger management.

Dave thought he could get out of it, but the one session he attended we see him snap at the doctor who by weird coincidence happens to be his sit partner Buddy. He refused to let Dave off easy, so Dave has to finish the class. He gets assigned an anger buddy someone he could call when things get out of hand, which landed Dave in more trouble, and he could face jail time if he does not get his anger issues controlled.

The movie failed to make me care about Dave who I believe if I was in his shoes would have attempted to kill Buddy earlier than he did.

Very unrealistic, boring and not funny is this movie which I wish I had left in the cage back in mind when I saw it back then and could not recall what happened.

Mr Deeds (2002)

Mr Deeds (2002)

 5/10

 

Starring

Adam Sandler

Winona Ryder

Peter Gallagher

Jared Harris

 

 

Directed by Steven Brill

 

Back then seeing this I had no idea that this was a remake of classic Frank Capra movie from 1936 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. I haven’t seen the classic this movie is made from, but I can bet it holds more water than this. I guess back then Sandler must have believed that violence was fun to depict on screen. Because Deeds (Adam Sandler) was a gentleman who seems to get violent at people who either treat him wrong or just treat others he liked wrong. How this was an amiable character for the loveable Deeds we were supposed to be rooting for goes over my head.

I am giving this movie a 5/10 because of nostalgia of the times in my life were nothing much mattered and I wish I could be so myopic a believer in the world’s goodness once again.

The movie is not bad, it still was able to hold my interest even though the story needed work. Also, the acting looked dull at times and the movie seemed like something everyone got into because they believed it would be fun. You can see it in their acting and the way the characters were exaggerated that the people involved seem to be having fun making this movie. It looked like that, and I hope that’s how it was.

The movie starts with a man trying to conquer a mountain. He died doing so and it turns out he is worth over $40 billion, and he had children or wife. His company did some investigation and found a distant relative of his living in a remote village in New Hampshire, Longfellow Deeds. Deeds was approached and given the news that he was going to be rich. He was also convinced to sell his shares in the company and just live out his life with his money.

Deeds travels to New York in style and has to wait for somedays for the paperwork to be done. Somewhere else in New York is a lady named Babe (Winona Ryder) who wants to make it big as a reporter. The news studio has been stalking Deeds and heard how he so much wanted to be a hero to a damsel-in-distress. So, Babe faked a basic damsel-in-distress situation and got Deeds attention and he fell for her beauty. Elsewhere the paperwork is being drawn to get him to sell his shares, while Babe was able to get footage on Deeds which were used to smear him.

How everything turned out for Deeds and Babe in the end is for you to see when you take a shot at this movie, even though I do not recommend you do.

50 First Dates (2004)

 50 First Dates (2004)

 

7/10

Starring

Adam Sandler

Drew Barrymore

Rob Schneider

Sean Astin

Dan Aykroyd

 

Directed by Peter Segal

 

Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore were the wonderful couple from The Wedding Singer (1998) and seeing them come together for this film again, I knew back then in Uni, I had to see it. I recall owning the DVD for this movie and watched it over and over again. I never got tired of seeing Sandler’s character Henry try daily to make Lucy (Barrymore) fall in love with him every day. The complexity this will take for any man is removed from this movie and the movie just coasts on the idea of a fun romantic comedy about a man hooked on a girl who cannot remember who he is the next day.

The movie’s use of some humor had me laughing and smiling, we do not get such humor anymore these days as the politically correct crew will come after anyone who makes fat jokes, criticise long-term commitment or drug use jokes. This were the golden times when jokes were seen as such, jokes.

The movie explores the life of a lady Lucy who suffered brain damage. She has some sort of amnesia which makes it impossible for her to retain short term memory. Everything to Lucy stopped on the day of her accident and she relives that same day every day. The movie has a sense of Groundhog Day (Bill Murray), with the complexity that followed the movie removed, this is a more easy and funnier Groundhog Day.

Here is where Henry comes in. He sees Lucy at a diner and approaches her. The hit it off had a beautiful breakfast together and were to meet again for another. He shows up the next day and she does not know who he is and is upset that he is coming onto her.

Henry is brought up to speed on what happened to Lucy and instead of turning away, he liked the challenge and tried daily to get her attention but failed many times. Until he decided to stop trying to do it easy and come up with more complex rues to get her attention. This worked and they started a funny relationship.

Things got difficult for them, and the movie takes us through this difficulty when you start to believe that one day at least once she will wake up and remember who you are.

The movie was a box office success back in 2004 and it is a keeper. I know in the future I will again go searching for where I can sit down and rewatch Sandler and Barrymore play love mates again. She to me has been the best on-screen couple pairing he has had so far in his career.

The Man from Toronto (2022)

The Man from Toronto (2022)

 2/10

 

Starring

Kevin Hart

Woody Harrelson

Kaley Cuoco

Jasmine Mathews

Lela Loren

 

Directed by Patrick Hughes

 

So, Sony did a bad movie then sold the distribution rights to Netflix, well that’s good marketing for Sony and bad purchase for Netflix. When is Netflix going to learn to either make good movies or get good movies? This movie was awful.

The chemistry between Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson is non-existence. That is not even the worse part of this movie is the characters they portray. Kevin plays Teddy a man who is so annoying and unrealistic a person that it goes over my head how the director let this happen. The idea of making Teddy a person that never shuts up even in situations where he is about to die is one of the worst movie mistakes I have seen. Who goes on a talking spree in a situation where you survived a plane crash, witness a man kill other people and be sent on a mission to infiltrate a political killer’s home? Nobody that I know will find these situations a good place to keep talking non-stop.

Then there is Woody’s character the Man from Toronto, who is supposed to be a ruthless killer with no emotions. Sadly, all through this movie his reason for keeping Teddy alive started to fade fast and still this man failed to just put a bullet in Teddy’s head even if for no reason, but to make his mouth stop moving. Hart talked so much I yelled at the screen, shut up!!

The plot is about a local screwup named Teddy who decided to make up for years of screwups and take his wife on a beautiful getaway on her birthday. He mistakenly goes to the wrong house where the occupants were expecting the man from Toronto. When he saw that they wanted him to torture someone for the fear of getting himself killed, he played along. He got the information the needed without lifting a finger to torture. The place was geared to be raided and it was. Teddy was captured and since his arrival the occupants have sent his profile picture to their boss, saying they have made contact with the man from Toronto. The FBI ask Teddy to continue to play along until they catch the man they are after.

The man of Toronto watched from the side-lines as all these take place. He catches up with Teddy before he goes on the next mission and the two work together to get the next information before Toronto decides what he wants to do with Teddy.

In the end you have a movie filled with promising stars who never match on screen and a script which never took off.

The Wedding Singer (1998)

The Wedding Singer (1998)

 

6/10

 

Starring

Adam Sandler

Drew Barrymore

Christine Taylor

 

Directed by Frank Coraci

 

Spoilers Alert:

Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore made a good onscreen pairing in this movie. The Wedding Singer is about a man who had his heart ripped out in-front of all his friends and later falls madly in love with another lady who he is supposed to help plan a wedding.

The movie is fun, and I did enjoy seeing it again because I had fun memories of seeing this movie when I was much younger. Seeing it all matured now, even though the nostalgia had me I do believe this movie is an ok comedy pass with a script that lacked that total conviction needed to push it off into space.

The romance that started between Robbie (Adam Sandler) and Julia (Drew Barrymore) came out of no-where and from a situation that seems too impossible to occur. Julia had to get help from another man who is suffering from heartbreak to plan a wedding which he himself could not have. That seemed very insensitive of Julia to ask such a thing, but the movie found a way to make it work. They did this by making Glenn (Julia’s fiancé) a jerk. The movie made up for the sappy script romantic pairing by indirectly saying she was going to be unhappy anyways, so Robbie came to save the day.

The plot is about a wedding singer Robbie, who gets left at the altar by his supposed to be wife. Robbie and his friends are the only ones majorly in town who do wedding gigs. It was at a wedding gig before his own catastrophe that Robbie meets Julia (who waitress at weddings). They start a friendship promising to help each other at their own weddings. Julia was there at Robbie’s wedding as a waitress when he goes left. Robbie is in a spiral losing his mind when he gets an invite to Julia’s engagement party he goes and his friendship with Julia grows. When Glenn proposes to Julia, a wedding is needed to be put together for the new couple in town. Julia asks Robbie to help with the planning to which he agrees. Soon the time the two spent together blossoms their friendship into love. To help along the way, Glenn turns out to be a womanizer so Robbie trying to snatch his girl was in this movie’s way justified.

In the end, The Wedding Singer is one of those movies from Adam Sandler’s past that I will always fondly remember as one of his bests. Even though it does not cut it much now in comparison to wonderful comedies of the 90s. It still holds up in my head as one of the cool movies I saw back then.

Happy Gilmore (1996)

Happy Gilmore (1996)

 3/10

 Starring

Adam Sandler

Christopher McDonald

Julie Bowen

Carl Weathers

 

Directed by Dennis Dugan

 

There is one part of my movie watching life that never seem to add up, I have never seen Adam Sandler’s Happy Gilmore. I decided to go see it and honestly, I wish I never did. I cannot deter you enough not to see this movie. The movie is horrible, boring, and not funny at all. The short-tempered Happy (Adam Sandler) is annoying, childish and as the movie carried on, I kept wondering how he was the good guy. His character sucked so much that they had to write his antagonist to step out of line so much for him to be classified as the bad guy, instead of the man who does not want a joke to come ruin the game he loved.

What made this movie champ the path for Sandler went over my head.

The movie follows the life of short-tempered Happy who wanted to be a hockey player at-all-cost. Happy’s dream of being a hockey player took over his life that nothing else mattered except his grandmother. His antics and his temper were so like what you will see from a five-year-old.

There is an aspect of the movie watching world who find this funny, I wish I can understand how? How do you enjoy the exaggerated, unrealistic behaviour of a man child?

Happy had one hell of a slap shot that he could hit a hocky cock and it will travel miles. He found out he could make some money swindling people, so he took his hitting game to a golf shooting range to swindle more people. It was there that Happy met golf trainer and former pro-golfer Chubbs (Carl Weathers) who wanted to train him to be a pro-golfer himself. But when Happy heard that he can make money if he goes for a golf tour, he went after the money so he can get the money needed to save his grandmother’s home form foreclosure. It is from there that the movie took a nose-dive from manageable to the point of annoying ridiculousness. The game of golf had to tolerate this annoying character and somehow he became a superstar.

Then there is the love interest who decided to fall for Happy a man who is shown to have no control of his temper. It was not that the bar is lowered by that annoying antagonist, far from it the antagonist wanted nothing to do with her romantically. It was just Happy whom she fell for.

This made it look more like she had a problem and only wants to be with men who are too childish to take control of their own life.

There are better Adam Sandler movies out there which I have seen back when I was younger and some which I can even point to now and this is not one of them.

Bulletproof (1996)

Bulletproof (1996)

 

4/10

Starring

Adam Sandler

Damon Wayans

James Caan

 

Directed by Ernest Dickerson

 

What Bulletproof lacks in humour it made up for it with a lot of flimsy deaths. The number of henchmen and innocent people who died in this movie is just ridiculous. The movie’s name is Bulletproof, well the two leads seem to be. While people are dying everywhere, these two always seem to survive no matter what. And when both got shot, death was nowhere to be found. One took a straight shot to the head and survived, the other got a graze.

The movie’s plot had as much holes as it could. The way a small-time crook could have access to a big-time boss like Colton, goes to show the movie writer did not do his read up well, I expected at least a middleman between these two. Secondly, you are suspecting that they are after you and you did not think to consider that your phone could be bugged. Do note his phone was not bugged, but I would not have spoken freely to my girlfriend if I was on the run.

The plot is about an undercover cop, Jack/Keats (Damon Wayans) who made friends with Moses (Adam Sandler) a small-time crook who had connection to a big-time drug dealer, Colton. Keats asked about how come Moses got enough money to throw around, even thought they work together and share the money 50/50. Moses after a while brought Keats in on his secret. He introduced Keats to Colton, and Keats used this opportunity to burst their next operation which led to Moses shooting Keats, and Colton not getting caught.

Colton is now after Moses, who escapes from him and is later arrested for a separate charge months later.

Moses decided to work with the police to bring down Colton for a lesser sentence and will only work with Keats, whose real name is Jack. Jack is not over Moses shooting him and Moses wants Jack to let it go as he is not over Jack betraying him. Now both must find their way to the D.A. before Colton and his goons catch up to them.

In the end the movie was a dud box office wise and critical wise. I watched this movie one more time now because I wanted to recall how it was, never knew I was better off not recalling how bad this movie was. Adam Sandler worked on a lot of movies in the 90s becoming a household name for anything comedy, but this buddy cop comedy did not live up to the needed expectations starring these two comedians.

The idea that anyone decided to do a second part of this movie, even though it was a straight-to-video release is beyond me. What was worse is that they now got new people to play the leads.