Was "Punch-Drunk Love" only a dream?
It seems like just yesterday that Adam Sandler was being feted and praised for his unexpectedly strong turn in Philip Thomas Anderson's romantic comedy. But with "Eight Crazy Nights," skeptics are vindicated: In this vile contribution to the animated holiday genre, Sandler proves himself once again determined to get rich by setting the bar just a little bit lower each time out.
"Eight Crazy Nights" opens with Sandler's character, Davey Stone, getting drunk in a Chinese restaurant; after issuing a protracted burp and being chewed out by a heavily accented waiter (voiced by Sandler's sidekick Rob Schneider), he stumbles out to his car, which he eventually pretends to take in a carnal embrace. These first few moments give viewers all they need to know about what the next hour has in store: Scatological humor, sex jokes, stereotypes and occasional bursts of sadistic cruelty are the currency of a movie that finds recurring humor in a woman with three breasts. Some of the jokes are too explicit to describe in a family newspaper, a fact that parents may want to take into account in addition to the film's PG-13 rating.
Adam Sandler makes himself multiply irritating by giving grating voice to all three of these characters in his crude, unfunny Hanukah movie.
(Columbia Pictures)
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Stone is a Jewish version of the Grinch in "Eight Crazy Nights," whose title is taken from Sandler's "Hanukah Song." He's filled with inexplicable misanthropy, which he expresses in violent bursts of crudity and meanness. Of course, by the end of the picture he will have found his heart, but redemption comes too late to make "Eight Crazy Nights" the least bit sufferable.
Sandler voices not only Stone but also a basketball coach named Whitey and Whitey's adenoidal twin sister, Eleanore; he seems to have calibrated his performances to find the most annoying timbre and pitch possible. In the movie's most disgusting sequence, Stone traps the elderly Whitey in a portable toilet and sends him sliding down an icy hill, after which the old man emerges covered with human waste. Side-splitting stuff. Sandler will no doubt get a little bit richer from "Eight Crazy Nights," and he will do so thanks to not just 13-year-old boys but older viewers as well. Youngsters may not know any better, but the question remains as to why Adam Sandler fans not only accept but conspire in their own debasement.
EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS (PG-13, 75 minutes) – Contains frequent crude and sexual humor, drinking and brief drug references. At area theaters.
