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#7 - Happy Gilmore
Dennis Dugan, 1996
Another Adam Sandler picture, this time about a wannabe hockey player who discovers he has a talent for playing golf and enters into pro tournaments in order to raise the money to save his beloved grandma from a sadistic nursing home.
This has long been touted as the best Adam Sandler comedy and, once again, this is another movie that I've never quite seen all the way through (yeah, there's a good chance you'll be seeing quite a few movies I've never seen "all the way through" on this list). Coming so soon after the release of Billy Madison, it does feel like a slight improvement on that particular film. The same tropes are there - underdog narrative, blonde love interest whose initials are "V.V.", slick upper-class douchebag antagonist, etc. - but they're all used to slightly better effect in the context of a sports movie rather than the fairly implausible "back-to-school" premise. It also helps that Sandler drops Billy's annoying voice permanently, substituting in a truckload of rage issues that always result in something funny. You could easily make a list of the various sports underdog clichés that are at work here, but in the context of a comedy they become a bit more tolerable and amusing. Some of the gags are surprisingly clever ("I eat pieces of sh*t like you for breakfast", anyone?) and there's not nearly as much gross-out humour as you'd expect - instead there's a lot of humour milked from the contrast between blue-collar loudmouth Happy and the entire pro golfer community. All things considered, this is probably the best Adam Sandler vehicle I've seen yet (and yes, that does include Punch-Drunk Love, but I'm considering revisiting that just to make sure). Even if you usually can't stand Sandler you should be able to appreciate the familiar yet comfortable humour inherent in this comedic take on sports movies.
Dennis Dugan, 1996
Another Adam Sandler picture, this time about a wannabe hockey player who discovers he has a talent for playing golf and enters into pro tournaments in order to raise the money to save his beloved grandma from a sadistic nursing home.
This has long been touted as the best Adam Sandler comedy and, once again, this is another movie that I've never quite seen all the way through (yeah, there's a good chance you'll be seeing quite a few movies I've never seen "all the way through" on this list). Coming so soon after the release of Billy Madison, it does feel like a slight improvement on that particular film. The same tropes are there - underdog narrative, blonde love interest whose initials are "V.V.", slick upper-class douchebag antagonist, etc. - but they're all used to slightly better effect in the context of a sports movie rather than the fairly implausible "back-to-school" premise. It also helps that Sandler drops Billy's annoying voice permanently, substituting in a truckload of rage issues that always result in something funny. You could easily make a list of the various sports underdog clichés that are at work here, but in the context of a comedy they become a bit more tolerable and amusing. Some of the gags are surprisingly clever ("I eat pieces of sh*t like you for breakfast", anyone?) and there's not nearly as much gross-out humour as you'd expect - instead there's a lot of humour milked from the contrast between blue-collar loudmouth Happy and the entire pro golfer community. All things considered, this is probably the best Adam Sandler vehicle I've seen yet (and yes, that does include Punch-Drunk Love, but I'm considering revisiting that just to make sure). Even if you usually can't stand Sandler you should be able to appreciate the familiar yet comfortable humour inherent in this comedic take on sports movies.