Review of That's My Boy

Yes, its not nearly as good as anything Sandler starred in in the 90's but i would argue that its about on par with most of the stuff he's been in in the 00's laugh wise. (On the scale of movies from the 00's,I think its probably the equivalent to "I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry" if only Andy Samburg were as good playing off of Sandler as Kevin James was. Samburg's not bad, but the movie really doesn't let him do anything outside being the straight man here.) Its certainly got more laughs in it then Jack and Jill at the least. No, not everything that's in it is funny, yes it goes on for way, way, way longer then it should. Yes, some of the jokes are pretty awful. Yes the premise is quite unbelievable. (30 years after the student/teacher affair scandal rocked the tabloids--why would random people still know who Sandler's character is by sight? especially if he hasn't been in the media in a good decade or two at that point and he was near completely broke???) Plot holes aside I would still be lying if i said that i didn't laugh at a fair number of things that happen throughout the film, and i would be lying if i said that i didn't think the semi serious scenes between Sandler and Samburg didn't work. I thought they were really effective. The scene where Sandler is hugging Samburg and tells him he regrets letting him go all those years ago and that he wished he'd been a better dad and samburg drunkenly forgiving him and kind of shrugging off the years of resentment actually felt heartfelt and genuine. That's really what drunken forgiveness looks like. It was kind of similar to the scenes in "Chuck and Larry" where Sandler stands up in open court and says how he feels flat out about people who call him names and how much they hurt more then he'd ever care to admit in public. Sure those scenes were written to give both films some semblance of dramatic heft--and to give Sandler something dramatic to play-but to me they were both effective, and they both show how even in somewhat tossed off comedies Sandler can still manage to maintain his dignity on screen and come off as a better actor then the material. Maybe he really has become a better actor as he's gotten older, because i really think he's a lot better at playing these serious heartfelt moments towards the last half hour of his films where his character is supposed to learn a lesson then he's ever been before. (Especially in something like Click where the humor turns much more bittersweet in the last half) Its because I felt that Sandler geuinely wanted to be a better person to his kid, that i thought the ending worked, (even if the end reveal does kind of come out of nowhere) and i thought the movie to be a resonably good time if you've liked sandler's movies these past number of years more or less....and c'mon some of the things happening are pretty funny.

Also the very quick scene with Vanilla Ice where Sandler asks him to drive him at the end and Vanilla goes "You Kidding Me????" and then strikes a pose and then Sandler waits a beat and says "Is that a yes or a no? I don't know what that pose means Ice." was pretty hilarious--and that was just a tossed off thing. (Why wouldn't Sandler's character be friends with Vanilla Ice anyways???)