That’s My Boy

Look,
I sorta kinda get the comic appeal of Adam Sandler — at least his early work.
Sure, movies like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore featured the
kind of juvenile jokes and retro stunt cameos that are low hanging fruit for
comedy. But they also had a scrappy, energetic, good-natured quality that made
it easy to laugh at a brawling Bob Barker or a hallucinogenic penguin.
Similarly, Sandler’s winking adoration of all things ’80s brought with it the
unexpected (albeit minor) delight of The Wedding Singer.

Since
then, the former SNL star has had a few interesting Hollywood detours, not the
least of which was Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love. There, the
comic actor showed that he could convincingly carry a leading role with
disarming nuance and insight. His penchant for adolescent outbursts was
tempered with self-deprecating shame, creating a fascinating friction between
impulsive rage and adult regret. You can see flashes of that self-awareness in Funny
People (which is half of a great movie) and the remake of The Longest
Yard. Even rom-com vehicles such as 50 First Dates benefited from
Sandler’s kinder, gentler instincts, allowing him to indulge in and mock his
comic persona in equal doses.

Lately,
however, Sandler seems more than happy to indulge in work that makes everyone
dumber for having seen it. Like fellow SNL alum Eddie Murphy, he has squandered
his talents on lazy and obvious projects. While Jack and Jill, Click and Bedtime Stories may pull in healthy box office numbers, they also
reveal a deep cynicism about what it means to be an entertainer. That’s My
Boy isn’t quite as dire as those recent efforts, but it’s still pretty
feeble stuff.

For
those who feel they need a synopsis: Sandler is Donnie, a mulleted man-child
with a scandalous childhood history — at 14 he had an affair and impregnated
his junior high math teacher then spent years cashing in on the ensuing
celebrity. With his first love (Eva Amuri Martino, then, later played by the
actress’ mother, Susan Sarandon) serving 30 years in jail, Donnie gained
custody of his son, Han Solo, at age 18 and proceeded to be a pretty terrible
dad. Flash forward 28 years and Donnie is now a broke slob who faces prison for
tax evasion. Needing $40,000 to avoid arrest, he learns that his estranged son
(Andy Samburg) is a successful and highly neurotic hedge fund manager named
Todd Peterson who is about to be married. Crashing the wedding in hopes that he
can convince Todd to participate in a well-paid televised family reunion,
Donnie reveals that, despite his crude selfishness, he still has some fatherly
instincts in him after all. Aw.

Statutory
rape jokes aside, That’s My Boy‘s setup is pretty standard stuff. It’s
the execution that’s a bit different for Sandler. Trying to make the most of
his R-rating, the movie strains to achieve the gross-out raunchiness of a
Farrelly brothers’ flick while delivering just enough sentimentality to justify
its existence. The result is a steady barrage of sexual vulgarity, misogyny,
’80s references (Pontiac Fieros and cassette tapes are funny!) and Z-level
celebrity cameos. From Tony Orlando to Rex Ryan to Todd Bridges, the guest
stars range from desperate to deplorable. Only Vanilla Ice, playing himself,
manages to come off better than you’d expect. In fact, between Sandler’s
intermittently whiny-voiced shtick and Samburg’s thankless straight-man role,
the former rapper may be the best thing in the movie.

I
guess if your goal is to spend nearly two (longer than it needs to be) hours
guffawing over jokes that would appeal to a horny 12-year-old (an incest gag is
probably the movie’s cringe-inducing low point), That’s My Boy is
cinematic manna from heaven. For everyone else, there are a couple of decent
laughs to be found amid the repulsive idiocy — and the Van Halen-heavy
soundtrack (which oddly neglects “Hot for Teacher”) is an unexpected treat.

This article appears in Jun 13-19, 2012.