BIG DADDY
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Columbia Pictures Director: Dennis Dugan Writer: Steve Franks and Adam Sandler & Tim Herlihy, story by Steve Franks Cast: Adam Sandler, Joey Lauren Adams, Jon Stewart, Leslie Mann, Josh Mostel, Cole Sprouse, Dylan Sprouse, Rob Schneider, Steve Buscemi, Kristy Swanson
In the movie adapted from Oscar Wilde's play "An Ideal Husband," one character states in typical Wildean prose, "God punishes us by answering our prayers." This is another way of saying, "Don't wish too hard for something: you may get it." But what about the converse? Let's say that something, or somebody, is about the last thing you'd want? You'd be surprised how often your life would be turned around for the better if you got it. "Big Daddy" is an object lesson.
Adam Sandler's latest comedy is sure to be a big, sentimental hit with his extensive fan club but not so prized by more mature film lovers. Sandler's character performs in the role of a 30-year-old lazy, single guy whose girl friend is about to split in disgust over the man's languor. Would you imagine that someone with a law degree who can't get up the energy to work more than one day a week as a toll collector would want to adopt a 5-year-old kid? But ironies are the lifeblood of filmed fantasies. Surely the plot won't be spoiled for you if you have advance knowledge that boy and new dad will bond, the little one turning the caretaker's life around while the kid will learn lots of cute new ways to survive in the urban jungle.
"Big Daddy" is a big-hearted sentimental comedy that might make you wonder whether you'd really want to be brought up for a single month by a hang-loose dude like Sonny Koufax (Adam Sandler). If you were treated by this likable fellow with a good deal of respect, never yelled at or punished in any way, you'd think you were in stepdaddy heaven. But think again: what sort of adult would you become if you learned that it's OK to pee against the wall when a restaurant won't let you use its bathroom; that it's cute to train yourself to regurgitate slowly and then draw the disgorgement back into your throat before it hits the ground; that there's nothing wrong with breaking into a man's town house when the resident refuses to give you candy and to rob him of his watch and CD's; that it's no big deal to give legal authorities a false name when it suits your ego? As Koufax says to his friend, he gives the kids options instead of ultimata and lets the boy make his own choices. Some choices indeed!
The story opens as Koufax gets a stern lecture from his girl friend, Vanessa (Kristy Swanson), who is about to leave him because she is fed up with his lack of ambition. Koufax, who has a law degree but refuses to take the bar because he prefers to be an idler on the $200,000 he won in a lawsuit, is upset, but his life is about to change. When his roommate leaves town on an assignment in China, Julian (played alternately by twins Cole and Dylan Sprouse) turn up at his door, a lovable but sad, monosyllable kid who does not yet know that he is the love child of the man who shares Sonny's apartment. Since the social services office is closed, Sonny takes the kid to Central Park to teach him how to trip rollerbladers. When the lad has to pee and the snooty maitre d' at a posh restaurant announces a customers' only policy, Sonny teaches Julian how to use the wall. And when the two show up late at McDonald's for the breakfast special, Sonny plays role model once again by picking up a customer's fries and heaving them to the floor. (In a later experience, he teaches the kid how to get half-off on food by throwing the cans to the floor and getting a discount for the dents.)
While "Big Daddy" does not have nearly the raunchy vocabulary of the far more imaginative, even exhilarating "South Park," Steve Franks--who wrote the story on which the movie is based--manipulates the audience into thinking that kidding around about drug-taking and talking obsessively about your ex-girlfriend's sister's former job at Hooter's is a hoot and a holler. "Big Daddy" does try to be political correct in one way--in using two of Sonny's friends to demonstrate that gay is perfectly OK--but the two lawyers display their affection is such sloppy and hackneyed ways that you'd think the whole movie is a primer on being cool.
Steve Buscemi makes a fool of himself by ineptly playing a homeless man as though he were a darling character out of a Damon Runyon story, and in the movie's coda, Sonny proceeds to teach his roommate how to be silly enough as well so that little Julian can love him too.
Sandler has a better role than he enjoyed in "The Waterboy"--which is not saying a heck of a lot--but he has a way to go before reaching the peak he hit in "The Wedding Singer." The real scene-stealer of the movie is not the kid or the stepdaddy, but Joey Lauren Adams (from "Chasing Amy"), who seems to be the only one who knows how to act. "Big Daddy" is directed by Dennis Dugan, who appears to be well aware of his targeted audience.
Rated PG-13. Running Time: 100 minutes. (C) 1998 Harvey Karten
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