GROWN UPS: Starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello and Maya Rudolph. Directed by Dennis Dugan. Rated PG (Mild sexual references and coarse language). 102 min.
Reviewed by Peter W Sheehan
THIS comedy film is about five best friends, from the same junior high in the United States, who come together 30 years later, following the death of their basketball coach.
Adam Sandler is Lenny, Kevin James is Eric, Chris Rock is Kurt, David Spade is Marcus, and Rob Schneider is Rob.
Wives (Salma Hayek, Maria Bello and Maya Rudolph) and children come, and they all descend on the same location, which is a beautiful lake-house where the men celebrated their basketball victory many years before as young boys.
Their celebration takes place on Independence Day weekend. The families start off their weekend not getting on with each other, and gradually come to enjoy their company in the idyllic surrounds of the lake-house.
Obnoxious children become friends. Warring adults are reconciled. Insults turn into emotional support. And parents rediscover the joys of their children.
This is a US-made film that appears especially suitable for US audiences, and it is hard to estimate its likely popularity in Australia.
Much depends on the quality of the comedy routines in the movie itself, and they are not consistently funny. Adults behaving like children can be funny at times, and in this movie the youthful exuberance of the celebration for all those involved begins to wear off in a film that labours its point.
The tag line for the movie is that “some guys need a little extra time to mature”, and the movie shows abundant evidence of immature behaviour in almost everyone, who is in it.
However, the film is less about the immaturity of the adults than it is a thin tale with shallow messages of the worth of re-establishing relationships, accepting good family values, and staying together.
The comedy routines in the film are variable. What works best are the ensemble routines of the five sporting heroes, who engage well with each other as a team, particularly when their male bonding is glued together with clever repartee and good comedy-group timing.
Reflecting the fact that the five lead characters have mostly come out of their own television comedy series, the routines among the five of them would fit the theatre stage perfectly.
What works least are the sporadic incidences of poor taste and gross humour along the way, including a four-year-old child, who is still breastfeeding, and an elderly black woman, who passes wind frequently.
Overall, the movie is not as crude as some of those made by Sandler in the past, but the film nevertheless hits some predictably low spots, both in terms of sight gags and quality of scripting.
Sandler, who plays the part of Lenny Feder, a successful Hollywood agent, is a talented comedian. He has an easy style of comic delivery, and he is ably supported by four fellow-comedians.
For Sandler’s fans particularly, the film will be very entertaining. For general quality cinema-viewing, however, the film lacks depth and substance. The moral messages are right, but their impact is superficial, as moral meaning fades in the character’s farcical attempts to be funny in any way they can.
Peter W Sheehan is an associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting.
