The Captain takes a look at Mr. Sandler’s newest release straight to Netflix. Is he worth what they paid him?
If you’ve read my Pixels review, you’ll know about my love-hate relationship with Adam Sandler. Maybe because I grew up watching his idiotic movies I still tune in whenever he does a new one. You know what you’re about to watch is going to be bad, yet you still give him the benefit of the doubt because Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore were such funny movies. Even though I’m sure many will disagree with me. There’s actually a long streak from 1996 to the early 2000’s that he made some really funny stuff.
I’m going down the list here, trying to pinpoint where it all went sour. Honestly, I think Adam Sandler went bad like a moldy soggy onion, was when he started working with Kevin James. After I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry everything was downhill from then. What truly made Adam Sandler so reviled as he is was Grown Ups. After that his films mostly just became an excuse to take him and his friends on a vacation with the studios paying the bill.
Now he’s tricked Netflix into paying for his vacations.
And yes, you can’t forget the endless and blatant product placement he does. For Grownups 2 it was like Dicks sporting goods… no, wait maybe that was Blended. I can’t remember. He sells out so much, it is hard to keep track.
Nothing whores itself out like this film does. This time it’s Bud Light and Nike. David Spade’s character loves him some Bud, so of course they have to spend a whole scene around Adam Sandler’s character buying him a party pack of Bud Light. Even yelling out, wow is that a party pack of Bud! As Adam Sandler humps the set of 30 or whatever ridiculous number it holds. So much shitty beer!
Adam Sandler has two types of movies he does. He has unfunny shit that seems like something from a Chuck Lorre sitcom like Blended and Jack and Jill. That shit is for the moms. Then he has the more raunchy shittier films like That’s My Boy. The Do-Over falls under that category.
I believe Adam Sandler has signed on to do three Netflix film projects. This being the second. The first being a western called The Ridiculous 6. Which… I didn’t hate. It falls in between the two categories of the type of films he does. But at least in that film, it didn’t seem like an excuse to take his buddies to a tropical island and on their spare time, maybe film a movie. Plus, it being set in the old west, there wasn’t much shameless product placement.
So The Do-Over! A film that stars David Spade, someone who hasn’t been funny since Chris Farley died. Okay, that’s not fair, I did enjoy Joe Dirt quite a bit. But then he retroactively destroyed that goodwill by making a sequel. Don’t worry, I won’t go on a tangent about how terrible Joe Dirt 2 was. But just so you know, it’s terrible.
David Spade plays Charlie. Charlie is a sad sack, a pushover, a real loser. He works at a bank in the grocery store, which he has been working at since high school. And even there he gets no respect, even though he’s the manager. Grocery shoppers keep dropping by to ask him what aisle cat food is on.
He’s also found himself unhappily married to Natasha Leggero. On its own, not such a bad deal. I kind of have a thing for her. Anyway, she plays Nikki, someone who married him just for the money and is most likely still sleeping with her ex-husband. If that setup wasn’t bad enough, he also has two horrible step kids he has to look after.
At Charlie’s high school reunion, he runs into his old friend Max. When Max was a kid, they said he’d amount to nothing. But here he is claiming to be an FBI agent. These two reconnect, Charlie telling him how disappointed he is with his sucky life.
So the two go on a vacation together. I mean, Adam Sandler had to get his friends and family to a tropical island somehow, right?
While partying their brains out, Max drugs Charlie and blows up the boat they were on, using two dead bodies to help sell it.
How did Max get two bodies? Well, turns out he isn’t an FBI agent, but a mortician. He faked their deaths to give Charlie and himself a new start. Or at least that is what we are led to think.
Now Charlie and Max have taken the identities of these two dead guys. One has a lockbox with a shitload of cash in it, and also a tablet. Which proudly has an advertisement for Netflix on it. Max doesn’t seem to have much interest in the cash, his only interest is what’s on the tablet.
Thankfully, the dead guys have a summer home on a beautiful island for Adam Sandler to vacation in. The two dead guys, one was a rich doctor while the other was a banker. But it turns out one of them was also on the FBI most wanted list.
Now this Swedish acrobatic assassin is after them.
So I’m going to go ahead and spoil everything now. Max has cancer, he was on this experimental drug that actually worked. But funding was cut, so the doctor stole the formula and I guess robbed some banks to help pay for more research. Landing him on the most wanted list.
Charlie and Max learn this and go to find the doctor’s wife, with hopes she’ll know where the formula is. Charlie takes an instant liking to her. As I’m trying to look up her name on the film’s IMDB page, I’ve noticed at least 5 other Sandlers in this. I was kind of joking about him wanting to take his family on vacation under the guise of making a movie, but… the proof is in the snack pack. That’s an old Billy Madison reference. I thought I was your snack pack!
Anyway, the doctor’s wife Heather, played by Paula Patton, tries to hunt down the miracle drug. It turns out her husband was secretly gay. He wasn’t just friends with the banker, he was his lover! I think this is a plot point only so they could make the joke that Adam Sandler got a tramp stamp of the name of one of the gay doctor’s lovers on his back, thinking it was a woman, but turns out it was a man! Hilarious! And David Spade getting the dead guy’s tongue ring put in when actually it was a cock ring! So funny!
Like I said, Charlie falls head over heels for Heather. But it turns out she’s behind the Swedish assassin. She’s looking for the formula too, so she can sell it to whatever pharmaceutical company bids the highest.
Also, it turns out Max is not a mortician but… a school guidance counselor. Um… okay… I mean, he’s really good at shooting, driving and fighting, why not just actually make him an FBI agent? The reason he can do all this stuff is because he once tried out for the police force but flunked out because he couldn’t do a wheelie on the motorcycle. Well, mainly he says the reason is because he couldn’t pass the psych exam.
Charlie finds the formula and meets up with Heather, but seeing as he has such terrible taste in women, he knows she’s the one behind all of this. Luckily Max shows up to save the day, even managing to do a wheelie on a motorcycle. I’m glad that plot point had a happy conclusion. I really don’t think I could have slept until I had a proper conclusion to that wheelie situation.
But during everyone’s arrest, the laptop gets tossed into the river, losing the cure for cancer. But don’t get too sad because Charlie made a backup. That he put up his butt. Now Max gets to live and at the end we get to see Max’s mom’s old giant saggy titties. Hurray!
So… what did I think of this one? It wasn’t as bad as That’s My Boy and it wasn’t as good as The Ridiculous 6. It did have some genuine funny moments it in. It also had some really terrible ones as well. If you have Netflix should you watch this? That I don’t know. It depends on how much you like Adam Sandler or if you’re in the mood for a raunchy comedy that most likely won’t make you laugh.
I do have to say I enjoyed the plot a bit more than his usual films. I like how it becomes this mystery these two dummies have to solve. It also kind of featured some touching moments. I haven’t mentioned her, but Max has a wife played by Kathryn Hahn. Throughout the film she keeps popping up in the shadows. Max saying she’s his crazy ex-girlfriend. But really she’s his distraught wife that wants him to come home. Emotion in an Adam Sandler films, I know. How bizarre. It does kind of sneak up on you. Not enough for me to recommend this though.
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