Happy Gilmore (1996) 1/2 * A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp Copyright 1998 by Serdar Yegulalp
HAPPY GILMORE is one of those movies that you assume was intended as a comedy, but you don't laugh. It's one of the most disquieting films I've seen -- not because of what it showed, really, but because it assumed that everything it showed would automatically be found funny by its audience.
Take, for instance, the title character, as played by Adam Sandler. Sandler is one of the most charmless people to ever step in front of a camera. Like so many other "comic" actors today, he assumes that if people laugh when someone raises their voice to a roar, people will REALLY fall apart laughing if he raises it to a pavement-splintering bellow. More is not better.
Happy Gilmore is a kid with a hockey fetish and what some counselors would probably call "an anger control issue". He can't play hockey to save his life, and this enrages him. Constantly. Then he discovers, quite by accident, that his bad hockey playing translates into great golf playing, and soon he's taking part in a tournament that promises to help pay for his grandmother's back taxes.
How interesting is any of this? Not very. It's only made worse by the fact that the one gag in the movie is Happy's temper tantrums. If this were a serious movie, it would be something along the lines of COBB: about a dangerous sociopath who is only redeemed by the fact that he can channel his aggression into a socially acceptable form. Here, it's a lame clothesline to hang a bunch of extremely uncomfortable scenes masquerading as comedy.
Here's the thing: Take these psycho-behavior scenes out of this movie, like the one where Happy smashes a beer bottle and goes after his golf rival, and you'd have the pieces for a completely different story -- maybe one of those Paul Schrader films, like TAXI DRIVER or ROLLING THUNDER, about tormented loners who take out their anger on the world around them. But instead the same ingredients are used to make a comedy, and the result is ugly and unsavory.
Why is any of this supposed to be funny? After the credits rolled, that was the only thing that stayed with me. That and Adam Sandler's shrill and unlikeable screen persona, who on the basis of this film I won't be interested in seeing ever again.
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