Adam Sandler stars in this scathing, hilarious satire of American sexual attitudes…is how I’d have liked to begin this review, so I did. Unfortunately, what I actually saw was another dopey Adam Sandler comedy. He and Kevin James, of TV’s The King of Queens, star as Brooklyn firefighters who pretend to be gay to take advantage of a domestic-partners law. Understand, Chuck and Larry are so homophobic that they’d never actually do this, especially for the incredibly phony reason they’re supposed to here, but I guess that’s part of the hilarity.
Notwithstanding the gay twist, Chuck and Larry follow the well-trod path of movies like Tootsie and Soul Man. In the former, Dustin Hoffman learns to be a better man by pretending to be a woman. In the latter, C. Thomas Howell learns to be a better white guy by pretending to be a black guy. Here, Chuck and Larry, but mostly Sandler’s Chuck, learn to be better straight white guys by pretending, badly, to be gay white guys. The gay aspect isn’t all that new either; in 2001’s far funnier The Closet, Daniel Auteil spreads a rumor that he’s gay to avoid getting fired. His character doesn’t change his behavior, but watches others change in response, lampooning both homophobia and political correctness. Possibly the only intelligent sequence here is when James’s Larry confronts his fellow firefighters about their sudden chilliness, pointing out that Chuck was the same person as before. Up until then they’d spent the entire movie reinforcing stereotypes, not objecting to them. They don’t act like people pretending to be gay so much as people pretending to do a sketch comedy show about people pretending to be gay. With a city inspector trying to suss out their sham marriage, they worry that their trash isn’t gay enough. Interviewed by a lawyer (Jessica Biel), Larry says, “we’re big-time fruits,” when asked to reassure her that they’re not just pretending. Apparently, this does the trick. You’ll know the actual gay characters, though, because they’re either hitting on Chuck, wearing drag, or singing “I’m Every Woman” in the shower.
By virtue of being the only non-bimbo female character, Biel serves as the obvious heterosexual love interest for Chuck. Just like Dustin and Jessica Lange in Tootsie, or Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot, she and Chuck become great gal pals, and so comes the inevitable moment in every mistaken-identity comedy, where the hero must expose himself as a liar yet convince the love interest that he’s become worthy of her. (It’s always a her; someone should do it in reverse.) Here the script draws upon the deep well of sympathy that Americans have for felons (see also John Q), resolving the storyline in perfunctory fashion. This actually leaves the heroes with the original dilemma that led to the ruse in the first place, but it’s doubtful anyone thought of that.
Surely, some sort of comedy sinkhole surrounds director Dennis Dugan, whose last Sandler comedy was Big Daddy. (In between, he helmed the awful Saving Silverman, the terrible National Security, and the lame Benchwarmers.) As it happens, this closely follows the frequent Sandler formula, exemplified in Big Daddy: two parts Sandler as a loveable jackass, then one part blubbery sentimentality. I have to wonder what the contribution was of Alexander Payne (Sideways), one of the four screenwriters. If you’re one of Sandler’s legions of fans, I wouldn’t want to dissuade you from seeing this. It’s the same sort of broad humor that made hits out of The Waterboy and Mr. Deeds. I’ll just leave you with this litmus test: Rob Schneider, the least of several Saturday Night Live alumni in the supporting cast, dons bad make-up and a bad accent to play a Chinese(?)-Canadian wedding official. If imagining that tickles you, the rest will have you rolling.
IMDB link
reviewed 7/23/07
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