That's My Boy

There is an important distinction to be made between Hollywood funnyman Adam Sandler’s new star vehicle, “That’s My Boy,” and his previous one, “Jack and Jill.” It concerns their nature and the manner in which they treat their audience. The latter film, for example, treated its audience with nothing but contempt, as shown in its unfathomably lazy craftsmanship, the nonexistent effort from director Dennis Dugan, the hair-tearing cross-dressing performance from Mr. Sandler in drag and the relentless, shameless advertisements for such crammed-in, front-and-centre products as Pepto Bismol, Coca Cola and Dunkin’ Donuts.

“That’s My Boy” is no “Jack and Jill,” Sandler’s fast disintegrating cluster of fans will be relieved to hear. It does not insult its audience; merely, it strives to shock them. Like the works of the Farrelly Brothers and Sacha Baron Cohen, it is more traditionally offensive, opening with lighthearted depictions of statutory rape, venturing into sex with the elderly and closing with plot revelations of an incestual persuasion. Strange as it may seem, this gives the film quite a boost in respectability over the 2011 disaster: as we watch “That’s My Boy,” we may be offended, we may be aghast and we may be utterly appalled, but at least we’re not being insulted — not as much as we were by “Jack and Jill,” anyway.

But let it be clear: as a Sandler vehicle, “That’s My Boy” may not be “Jack and Jill", but it’s no “Happy Gilmore” either, nor is it “The Wedding Singer,” “50 First Dates,” “Anger Management” or even “The Waterboy.” In fact, looking at the occasional ups and frequent downs of Sandler’s career, it appears his latest flick succeeds in bettering only three of his past vehicles: 2002 animated musical flop “Eight Crazy Nights,” 2010 SNL holiday home-movie “Grown Ups” and the film that has already been discussed, will no longer be named and as such cannot hurt us anymore.

As the film opens, its R-rating (Sandler’s first since the underrated “Funny People”) is made more than clear. It is 1984, and potty-mouthed 14-year-old middle schooler Donny Berger (Justin Weaver) is hot for teacher. To his surprise, and ours, 22-year-old cougar Mrs. McGarricle is hot for student. The two embark upon an unlikely (very pedophilic) affair until they are caught with their pants down on-stage during a school assembly. Mrs. McGarricle, pregnant, is thrown behind bars on a 30-year sentence, while little Donny, who is made guardian of his son, becomes a tabloid star. There’s a slight attempt at social satire here, but it’s undermined by the plot’s lack of believability.

28 years later, Donny (now played by Sandler) is alone and all washed up, spending most of his time at a sleazy strip club and never seen without a can or bottle of beer clenched between his fingers (a running gag sees him using glass bottles to knock people unconscious). The Sandler here is not the laid-back nice-guy Sandler of “Grown Ups” and “Click,” but the man-child Sandler of “Little Nicky” and “The Waterboy” who speaks in a gratingly goofy voice and gurns like a sufferer of chronic constipation.

Donny discovers that he owes $43,000 in back-taxes to the IRS. If he doesn’t cough up by the end of the week, he’ll be going to jail for three years. With only $28 to his name, he doesn’t have the money. So, he hatches a plan: he’ll reunite with his estranged son, millionaire businessman Todd (Andy Samberg, capable but wasted in a straight-man role), along with the imprisoned Mrs. McGarricle, and have it filmed for a TV special, for which he will receive $50,000. As soon as the scene setting it up is over, the reality TV subplot is immediately wiped from our memories and, out of nowhere, pops up again in the third act before a swift and predictable resolution.

Todd intensely loathes his father, partly for making him a product of a national scandal, partly for his semi-abusive upbringing and partly for naming him “Han Solo Berger” (since changed to “Todd Petersen”). Donny turns up out of the blue (greeting his son with a tongue-dangling “whazuuup?!") on the weekend of Todd’s wedding to the gorgeous Jamie (Leighton Meester, “The Roommate”), who spends most of the film being a nag. Much of the rest of “That’s My Boy” is the lead-up to the climactic wedding. And yes, there are drunken stag night shenanigans, during which ill-fated bicycle stunts are attempted, after which wedding dresses are stained by an interesting mix of bodily fluids.

Like most of Sandler’s projects, “That’s My Boy” features cameos from celebrities of... varying... levels of fame. One-hit-wonder Vanilla “Ice, Ice, Baby" Ice appears as himself, or at least a fictionalised version of himself who sells chicken nuggets by an ice rink (Ice! Geddit?). I learn from some googling that Donny’s lawyer is played by New York Jets coach Rex Ryan. Plus, James Caan inexplicably feigns an Irish accent as a Catholic priest prone to fistfights. With Caan in this, Al Pacino dancing with a giant polystyrene cup in that film, and Robert De Niro busy having his penis stabbed with needles by Ben Stiller in the “Focker” franchise, one can only assume that appearing in Sandler’s next project is either Robert Duvall or Marlon Brando’s corpse.

I’ve deliberately left veiled the best cameo, which is an inspired piece of casting and makes for the highlight of the film. Another highlight is a gag involving jizzy tissues and a sly granny — I won’t spoil this either, for it provides one of the film’s precious few laughs. Indeed, while some prepubescents and young adolescents may get a kick out of the overweight black stripper character and the public child molestation, most who are legally allowed to see "That's My Boy" in the UK will surely find it all a bit boorish, desperate and ultimately disheartening.

The problem is not that the film is juvenile; we’ve seen such immaturity countless times before in Sandler’s work, and many times it has been funny. The problem is that the film is persistently witless, and we’ve now reached a stage in Sandler’s career where we need a little wit to go along with the juvenility. But “That’s My Boy” won’t budge, opting to go for the easy route of indulging in needless, brainless shock tactics that serve zero purpose in regards to the plot, and later countering them with cloying sentimentality that’s about as convincing as Sandler’s skin-crawling Bostonian accent.

I’d make note of the fact that “That’s My Boy” is directed by Sean Anders (maker of the enjoyable “Sex Drive”) and written by David Caspe (scriber of half-decent sitcom “Happy Endings”), but I won’t kid myself: we all know who’s pulling the strings here. As a product of Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions, “That’s My Boy” is about all you’d expect of it, considering the studio’s recent output: if you’ve enjoyed anything of what they’ve released in the past few years, I don’t doubt that you’ll have a blast with the film. Hopefully one day Sandler will once again take a risk like he did with the wonderful “Punch-Drunk Love.” Until then, we must either ignore or endure.

4/10