Movie Review: Grown Ups

LITTLE ROCK — I give up.

Almost alone among my circle of moviegoing friends, I have held out hope for Adam Sandler’s soul. I have insisted upon his potential, encouraged by his performances in Punch Drunk Love, Reign Over Me and even in last year’s brave and baleful Funny People. His early comedies - Happy Gilmore especially - were dumb but possessed of anarchical energy, an animal will to chaos that almost trumped the predictability of their plots and their final-act capitulations to Hollywood convention. Though at this late date it is difficult to say precisely what it was I saw in Sandler, part of me always believed he would tire of faking it for money and establish himself as a great character actor, a film comedian of genuine depth or at least a welcome screen presence.

In short, I thought that someday Adam Sandler would grow up.

I see now that I was a fool for thinking that, for Adam Sandler has no incentive to mature into a fully formed adult. He makes oodles of money for doing the same stupid shtick over and over again, for audiences who have been trained to accept repetitive pratfalls and little spasms of micro-violence as entertainment. He’s in one of those crazy but not unheard of situations where actually doing better work would have a negative effect on his bottom line.

I’m slow, but I eventually catch on. Adam Sandler is in his mid-40s now; he is all he will ever be - a lowbrow comic who doesn’t want to work very hard at churning out “comedies” that would be harmless but for their admittedly minor contribution to the ongoing degradation and coarsening of American culture and the dumbing down of the American people.

If Sandler gets bored, he might take on the odd dramatic role, he might briefly recommit himself to being genuinely funny for a one-off HBO special. He might flash his talent at us, but he’s never going to work at actualizing that talent.

Anyway, if you’ve seen the trailer for Grown Ups, you’ve pretty much seen the movie - at least the “funny” parts. It’s “about” a group of childhood friends who reunite over a long July Fourth weekend after the death of the coach who led their Catholic Youth Organization basketball team to the championship when they were in junior high school. After the coach’s funeral, they gather at a lake house they visited when they were children, now with their own quirky families in tow.

It’s not an unpromising premise actually, and the fact that Sandler enlists some of his real life pals - Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade, Rob Schneider - to play his on-screen friends at least sets up an interesting dynamic. It’s more than a little reminiscent of Jason Miller’s play That Championship Season, though stripped of its social critique and willingness to engage adult concerns. Miller directed the film version of his play in 1982; it would have been interesting to see the core cast of Grown Ups take on that material. But that would have entailed work and a certain discipline.

But this team is not only undisciplined, it apparently has no playbook, and the few authentic-feeling moments that result feel more adlibbed than written. While a few of the performers come off OK - James is remarkably charismatic in an unforced setting, and even Schneider (sporting a ridiculous toupee and the silliest character) seems like he’d be a good dude to have a beer with - the overall effect of Grown Ups is of a lazy, cynical feature designed to provide all involved with a stress-free payday. At least they look like they’re having a good time. (And Sandler, one of the few Hollywood’s few real athletes, gets to show off his not-bad hoops skills.)

And, despite the obligatory vulgarity of the project, Grown Ups isn’t really offensive. Generally the women involved - Salma Hayek and Maya Rudolph, especially - come off pretty well. (Maria Bello is victimized by a running breast-feeding gag that’s unfunny from the start.) As my wife, Karen, observed after sitting stonily through the proceedings, at least it doesn’t make you want to take a shower afterward. It’s puerile and aggressively stupid, but at least it’s not cruel.

And no one is holding a gun to your head. Adam Sandler isn’t a criminal, he’s just - like most of us - part of the problem.