Big Daddy (1999, DVD)

Honest, there are some bits that are actually funny.

I've never been much of an Adam Sandler fan. Dating back to his SNL days, I found him to be juvenile, predictable, and not particularly funny. Opera Man and the rest of that nonsense bored the death out of me and I found Meyers and Carvey to be much more interesting.

Now don't get me wrong: there's a place for juvenile and predictable humor (I love the Stooges, Animal House, etc.), but there's no excuse for the not particularly funny part. So I haven't paid much attention to his movies.

In the meantime, though, Sandler has found his niche. In business school parlance, he's done a great job of differentiating himself from competing comedians and narrowed in on a specific market, viz., adolescents who like the modern equivalent of poop and farting jokes, with a strong dash of obscenity and sexual innuendo. Or not so innuendo.

Anyway, I don't make a habit of watching his movies. "Billy Madison" and "Happy Gilmore" looked too stupid even for someone like me, who thought "Tommy Boy" had a few laughs in it. I did catch "The Wedding Singer" while I was stuck in some hotel room on business, which was mildly amusing, but half way through I turned off "The Waterboy", which was completely unwatchable.

So it was with some trepidation that I recently turned on HBO and forced my wife to watch "Big Daddy" with me. Now, the cost of this movie was pretty high; I had to pop for dinner AND a bottle of Mumm's, but there you go. They say any landing you walk away from is a good one.

And the movie was . . . kind of funny, actually. It's your basic movie of male discovery that we've seen a million times, you know, worthless but funny creep grows up and starts earning an honest living. Sandler is a bum law school grad who hasn't taken the bar exam yet and is living off some dough he won in a personal injury lawsuit (a taxi ran over his foot). To keep himself busy, he works part time in a toll booth and hangs with his well-stacked girlfriend, who has decided to dump him (which reminded me of Bill Murray getting booted in "Stripes"). In the meantime, his room mate (Jon Stewart) goes on business, New York social services calls and--guess what--mistakes Sandler for his roommate and leaves the roommate's five year old kid behind.

Of course, the roommate didn't know he had a five year old kid. Such are the hazards of casual sex.

Back to the plot (what there is of it), Sandler hang on to the kid and we are treated to a succession of vomit, urine, and other olfactory and visual gags that are presented with a surprising sense of panache. On the way, we run into an amusing bum played by the always entertaining Steve Buscemi and Sandler develops a crush on a nice looking lawyer while he develops a liking for the kid.

You've got the usual PC crud. The nice looking lawyer works for the Sierra Club. (Who'd a thunk that?) We are treated to an on-screen homosexual kiss. (Male, not female--this isn't "Wild Things", pal, so don't get too excited.) And the courtroom custody scene is a cliched nightmare, as viewed by someone who spent twelve years in and out of such places.

Yeah, but I still laughed. The twins who play the kid do a nice job. Sandler gradually becomes almost sympathetic, although he has the bad taste to start practicing law. I liked the roller blade and the restaurant scenes. The running Hooters joke was pretty good, too.

You know, you can't eat provincial French and drink single-malt scotch all the time. Every now and then you have to go to a place where they let you puke on the floor. The visual equivalent of that place is an Adam Sandler movie.

Three stars. For those of lawful age, it's worth an extra star if you get reasonably intoxicated before watching it.