Just a heads up, movie lovers. This will be a MOSTLY SPOILER FREE review. What do I mean about mostly? I’m going to talk in detail about a certain scene that has nothing to do with the two main characters and doesn’t do much to affect that main plot. So I hope that’s passable for any readers who, like myself, hate spoilers. So read on. There will be no spoilers besides that one small scene.
I wanted to see Fate of the Furious this weekend, however my employer had other ideas. Work the whole weekend because I didn’t get the time off I wanted? Sure, why not? But you’re not here to listen to me (or read my) bitching. Not at all. If you’re reading this then you, my fellow nerd, are curious to see if I, the one and only Billiam, liked the first of four Adam Sandler movies to hit Netflix. Well, I watched it. I may have watched it only because I missed the last showing of Fate of the Furious but that’s neither here nor there. What is here, however, is my review of Sandy Wexler.
I didn’t have high hopes for this movie so I was able to go into it with absolutely no expectations. I actually turned this on with a backup plan. If it was too cringe worthy I was going to turn it off and start the new MST3K episodes! But alas, the movie wasn’t the movie equivalent of stepping on a fresh turd.
Sandy Wexler is the first of four movies out of a deal Adam Sandler made with Netflix. Maybe the streaming mogul was stoned when they agreed to this, but no matter the circumstances, it’s happened. This one got quite a few people to be in it. No really big names were in this but there were a lot of people who were once big. I could say has-beens like it did in my podcast (Future Flicks With Billiam which you should totally check out) but after thinking about it more, I just figured that it sounds too mean. The only person in the cast that I see on a regular basis is Terry Crews from Brooklyn Nine-Nine. This has a lot of old SNL alum and some old faces in music like Quincy Jones and Babyface. For a full list, check out the IMDB page, I don’t want to fill this blog with former SNL cast members.
The acting wasn’t bad, the characters were. Everyone in this movie can act, even Adam Sandler. It just so happens the the man hasn’t picked a good project since 2010 when he did Grown Ups. All of the supporting cast was goofy but not a good goofy, the kind of goofy that makes it feel like they’re phoning it in. Adam Sandler chose poorly for this role and added his signature baby voice to the mix. The voice was funny when I was a kid watching his earlier movies, but now it’s just sad. Like a one trick pony trying to remind us why he’s still relevant.
The story was basic. So basic in fact that I guessed what would happened a quarter of the way through. So when I watched everything happen, I didn’t feel anything because I had already predicted it AND the acting wasn’t good enough to make up for it. In fact, for a 2 hour and 10 minute movie, it felt rushed. That’s right, you heard me. 2 hours and 10 minutes of Adam Sandler. Yay. See what I’m willing to put myself through for you, my dear movie lovers? So it felt rushed when viewing the relationship between Jennifer Hudson’s character and Sandy Wexler.
The two meet and we’re supposed to believe there’s some instant connection. There are a couple hints at it here or there but most of the signs come from Wexler oozing desperation. The love story felt like a last minute add on and the focus was on Wexler being a moron and angering his clients. Let me reiterate, the story was basic, so basic that it even had a huge case of deus ex machina. I won’t spoil it, but someone or something comes in at just the right time to set all the wrongs, right. And then it’s almost immediately wrapped up from there.
That’s right. There’s not much going on after the big fix. “Hey main character, you’re a dbag.” “I am? Oh crap, let me fix everything.” end. I felt cheated. That I spent two hours with this character for it to all be wrapped up like an essay by a student who realized they were reaching the page limit.
The side characters were barely people. Anyone besides Sandler and Hudson’s characters were so shallow that if they were replaced mid movie, I would have been okay with it. You could have had a purge of everyone and the story would be unaffected, which is sad. the secondary characters are supposed to matter. But in this movie, all that mattered was the weak story revolving around Hudson and Sandler.
There were a couple scenes in the movie that made me laugh. Like an honest laugh that made me smile. But they were so few and far in between that I can’t remember a single one. The movie did have it’s good parts but there wasn’t enough.
There were a couple more things that caught my eye about this film… and not in a good way. It got really dark in one spot and unnecessarily so. A person, not one of the main or supporting characters, commits suicide and it’s quite sad but then right after some of the characters react to it as if it were a good thing. That’s really messed up. Suicide isn’t funny yet it gets treated with such disregard in this film that it almost made me turn it off right there. Another (non-spoiler) thing that made me angry was that Rob Schneider played a Middle Eastern man in straight up brown face. How the in all that is holy is that okay? Do you want to know why it made me so angry? Because it’s not fair. If Schneider’s character had done Blackface, this movie would have been boycotted and even have had it’s own hashtag dedicated to taking it down. But it was just Brownface which apparently is okay to the SJWs of the internet.
I’m done ranting. Lets end this. This movie was probably the best movie Sandler has done in over seven years, but it still wasn’t very good. This was just an excuse to get a whole bunch of people that kids these days wouldn’t even recognize, and give them some screen time. It was also an excuse to give the former superstar Jennifer Hudson a chance to sing in a movie. This film did everything wrong and not even the few good actors it had could save it. It felt like the script was written by a child and directed by someone who knew nothing about comedy. Skip this. It doesn’t matter that you can watch it on Netflix. Skip this.
Sandy Wexler gets a 4.5 out of 11
So here’s something that came to mind, thought you may enjoy it. A scene from Brooklyn Nine-Nine that’s applicable to Sandy Wexler
