Sony Pictures
Adam Sandler is just intriguing enough of a star to be utterly maddening. Can the man who appeared in "Punch-Drunk Love" and "Funny People" -- who seems to want to stretch himself -- be the same guy who makes utter junk like "Just Go With It" and "Bedtime Stories"? And if that isn't confusing enough, then he'll do something like "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" that is actually sorta nervy -- how many broad comedies are there about the Israel/Palestine conflict? -- and shows a sort of loopy ambition that suggests Sandler isn't just interested in playing to the lowest common denominator. Much like "Zohan," his new film, "Jack and Jill," is actually pretty absurdist for a mainstream comedy. But who cares when it's also incredibly terrible?
In the film, Jack (Sandler) is a successful L.A. commercial producer whose twin sister Jill is coming into town for Thanksgiving from the Bronx. He can't stand her, and pretty soon we understand why: Jill (who's also played by Sandler) is an insufferable, whiny, needy woman. But after desperately wanting to get Jill out of his house, he has to keep her around when he discovers that Al Pacino -- whom Jack needs to star in one of his company's commercials -- has an inexplicable crush on Jill.
On one level there's almost no point in reviewing an Adam Sandler movie because you already know what to expect. There are poop jokes. The movie has top-of-the-line product placement and cameos, yet the film itself looks incredibly chintzy and thrown together. Several of his buddies (David Spade, Nick Swardson) show up. It's mostly really broad and dumb -- until the end, when it becomes incredibly sappy. That review works for "Jack and Jill," but it might as well be used for half a dozen other Sandler films. The guy is not a fool. He knows what his audience likes, and he keeps giving it to them.
And yet, I do have to say that while "Jack and Jill" is pretty awful and very rarely funny, it's got that weird Sandler looniness to it that used to make his movies more fun. Beyond the obvious fact that you've got a major comedy star playing a woman -- and actually going to the trouble of giving her specific character traits -- there's also the amazing strangeness of watching Pacino send up his image as a Method-loving, slightly wacko Shakespearean actor while courting Sandler in drag. (Pacino's role isn't a cameo; he's a supporting character.) Even though it mostly doesn't work, that sort of meta-strangeness isn't something you're gonna see in "The Smurfs" or "The Hangover Part II." Still, it connects with the part of my brain that holds on to the idea of Sandler from "Punch-Drunk Love" or even "Happy Gilmore" and thinks, "See? That Sandler is still in there somewhere."
But then I watch the rest of "Jack and Jill" and know that I'm kidding myself. As with a lot of Sandler's recent films, "Jack and Jill" has a dashed-off, good-enough quality to it that's never good enough. He's got a gift for attaching himself to strong, audience-friendly plotlines -- fairy tales come alive ("Bedtime Stories"), regular guy can turn back time ("Click"), let's hang out with Jack Nicholson ("Anger Management") -- but usually his movies stop at the premise and fill in the rest with montages or adorable kids or Katie Holmes. "Jack and Jill" is such a broad, lazy, simple film that it'll probably inspire some critics to dig in to find extra levels of meaning underneath it all. ("Sandler splits his persona into two, with Jill representing his still-lingering self-hatred over his Brooklyn roots...") That makes for fascinating reading-between-the-lines conjecture, but let's not kid ourselves: "Jack and Jill" is supposed to be how funny it is to look at Adam Sandler in makeup and a dress. If you think there's more to it than that, the joke may be on you.
Grade: D+
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