Adam Sandler Might be the Smartest Actor in Hollywood
There’s a lot of good movies out there.
Within seconds, anyone with a television or computer and access to their friend’s Netflix account has hundreds of excellent films at their fingertips. And yet, in a move that can only be explained by my urge as a millennial to be cynical and flippant, I chose to watch “The Do-Over,” the second of Adam Sandler’s projects for Netflix.
From an outsider’s perspective, the Netflix deal seems to work like this: Netflix drops off a large amount of money, and Sandler’s “Happy Madison Productions” has full creative control over what to do with it. Most directors and producers would die for that opportunity.
Instead Sandler, just like an Adam Sandler character would do, seems to have taken the path of least resistance.
He even admitted as much in 2014 on Jimmy Kimmel Live (ya know the hard-hitting journalism show?). Aren’t your movies just excuses for a paid vacation?
Yes…I have done that since 50 First Dates,” Sandler explained. “It was written in another place. I said, ‘Imagine if we did it in Hawaii, how great that movie would be.’ And they said, ‘Yeah, that’s a very artistic idea.’ I’ve been doing that ever since.”
We can all sit here and judge him for clearly taking advantage of his position, but what would you do? Would you rather go through hell and almost die on the set of The Revenant for the love and adoration of movie critics or take a paid vacation to Hawaii or Puerto Rico?
Which is how we end up with a movie like “The Do-Over.”
There didn’t seem to be one original element to the entire production. David Spade’s character was essentially Joe Dirt dressed as Dwight Schrute. The main villain is trying extremely hard to be Karl from Die Hard (a joke that Sandler has literally already made before when this same guy was in Funny People). Kathryn Hahn plays…Kathryn Hahn’s creepy sex-crazed stalker character from every movie I’ve ever seen her in. And please tell me the Louis Guzmán-as-night-club-promoter role was self-facing humor?
The movie features a high school reunion that we’ve already seen in the Grown Ups movies, an old mother he has to take care of a la Happy Gilmore, and the racial insensitivity we saw in Blended and Ridiculous 6. And the big reveal at the end (spoiler alert) that he has terminal cancer? Yeah that was the entire premise of Funny People.
The script seemed to have been created by combining a 14-year-old’s R-rated fantasies with the conspiracy theory you can find on Facebook of “the government already has found a cure for cancer but won’t release it because they make too much money off of treating it.”
Add in the plot-line of pretending to be someone you’re not from Just Go With It, and stir well until jumbled into an incoherent stew. And for the cherry on top, let’s sprinkle out-of-place popular music and product placement.
The saving grace should be the comedy, right? Wrong.
Some of the biggest punchline moments (you know where the funniest moments were supposed to have been?) included Luis Guzmán’s sweaty balls dripping on David Spade’s forehead, the Karl from Die Hard-knock off almost shoving a phallic automobile part up Sandler’s ass, and seeing a 90-year-old woman’s breasts sagging below her waist.
I don’t suggest eating a large meal before watching.
Actually, I don’t suggest watching.
The climax of this movie was the reveal that David Spade had keister-stashed a USB drive that contained an effective treatment for cancer, which acted as a get-out-of-jail-free card for the numerous crimes they had committed while galavanting from tropical location to tropical location. Happily ever after…
All of this to say, that artistic freedom that was handed out by Netflix was not exactly met with cinematic brilliance.
Which brings us to Adam Sandler. What a damn genius this guy is. He reminds me a lot of Lebron James actually. If you’re just a great player or actor, sure you can be loved and respected, but you’re dependent on great teammates and a great coach (or a great supporting cast and director) to be the best version of yourself.
But if you control the whole organization like Lebron, and act as general manager, coach, and star player, you can do whatever you want.
When given the chance, Sandler always makes his character always be the cool one, the athletic one, the one with all the money. It’s an act of self-branding that’s so powerful Donald Trump would be proud. And most importantly, he always gets the really hot girls.
In just the past few years he’s co-starred with Michelle Monoghan, Julia Jones, Brooklyn Decker, Jennifer Aniston, Salma Hayek, Leslie Mann, and now Paula Patton. That’s a lineup that would give Derek Jeter a run for his money.
Again, how can you hate on this guy? Just like Lebron, he’s in a position to choose to work with all of his best friends (over and over and over again), in exotic locations (like Miami and now…uh…Cleveland), and make all of his own rules.
You don’t need me to tell you “The Do-Over” was bad. A quick Google search will uncover dozens of terrible reviews. But the problem is everyone is still judging this movie, and its star, by the conventional standard.
He doesn’t want to be a serious actor, so we need to stop expecting him to want that. In that way I guess he’s more Dwight Howard than Lebron. There’s nothing wrong with backing out of Quentin Tarintino’s Inglorious Bastards to go hang out with Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill and make Funny People, if you don’t care about winning statues.
And before you start a holy war about how Sandler’s not reaching his full potential, think about this. He just got paid to hang out on the beach, drink, and drive around in a red Ferrari. And then he went home, where he got to hang out on the beach, drink, and drive around in (I’m assuming) a red Ferrari.
Find a job that you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. Isn’t that what they tell us?
Sandler has parlayed that quote into appearances in over 4o movies in the last 20 years, accumulating a net worth of $360 Million (according to the always accurate celebritynetworth). While the Netflix viewership statistics are guarded like Fort Knox, they did tell us that The Ridiculous 6 was the biggest movie opening in the company’s history.
So even though we now laugh at Adam Sandler instead of with him, he’s laughing all the way to the bank.
That sounds like the smartest actor in Hollywood to me.
