Happy Gilmore

3/4

Starring: Adam Sandler, Christopher McDonald, Julie Bowen, Frances Bey, Carl Weathers

Rated PG-13 for Language and Some Comic Sexuality

"Happy Gilmore" is, in many respects, not a very good movie.  It's rude, immature, unsophisticated, sloppily made, and more than a bit dumb.  However, such flaws are easy to overlook for. one very important reason: it is a very funny movie.  At times it is sidesplittingly so.  I laughed loudly about a dozen times during this movie, and at least twice I had to rewind it to see what I missed.  I can name a several more ambitious comedies that can't make that same claim.

Happy Gilmore (Sandler) has wanted to be a hockey player all his life.  Unfortunately he can barely skate, which makes his dreams of NHL glory a non-starter.  Happy does have a killer swing, and that translates well to a golf long shot as an old pro (Weathers) tells him.  So, in order to save his grandmother's (Bey) house, he enters into a golf tournament.  That doesn't sit well with Shooter McGavin (McDonald), a pompous jerk intending on winning the gold jacket.

The typical Adam Sandler movie relies on the actor to be as obnoxious and uncouth in the face of a situation where politeness and decorum are expected.  Whether it's in school ("Billy Madison") or college football ("The Waterboy"), Sandler takes a bulldozer to anything with too much self-respect.  He has no problem playing the fool (in fact, he embraces it) as long as he makes the serious look silly.

Of course, personal taste has a lot to do with a person's reaction to comedy, and the lack of subtlety or intelligence in the screenplay for "Happy Gilmore" is worthy of honest criticism.  For me personally, I find it funny when someone attacks someone's dignity with so much energy that it goes past overkill.  So when Sandler gets rude and obnoxious at an overly serious game of pro golf, I laughed.  And I nearly had to be hospitalized when he comes to blows with an increasingly exasperated Bob Barker.  The scene, while obviously fake, had me on the verge of tears.

Sandler delights in taking away the dignity of those who are too proud or too stupid.  So when the arrogant Shooter McGavin insults him repeatedly and makes it clear that this new upstart isn't worthy of being on the bottom of his shoe, he makes himself ripe for being cut down to size.  McDonald, a character actor famous for playing jerks, is well aware of this and tailors his performance accordingly.  Shooter is an nasty piece of work, but keeps him just under the line of going over the top.  We all know men like him, even if his worst qualities are exaggerated.  It's a good performance.

The film was directed by Dennis Dugan, and if I'm being perfectly honest, he doesn't do a very good job.  The story is thin and relies too much on Sandler's manic energy.  The actor is up to the task of carrying the film, to be sure, but a stronger story and crisper direction would have given it a bigger punch.  Some scenes without Sandler, or when the actor isn't let loose, don't work or aren't as funny as they could be.  Take for example the scenes with Ben Stiller as a sadistic nursing home aide.  There's a lot of potential to be mined and the actors are more than up to the task, but Dugan isn't able to bring it out.

Much of this analysis is either irrelevant or unwarranted.  A movie like "Happy Gilmore" exists for one reason and one reason alone: to provoke fits of uncontrollable laughter.  It doesn't matter that the plot is thin and stupid (both of which are true).  It doesn't matter if the direction isn't sophisticated (again, this is true).  All that matters is that the film made me laugh.  And it did.  I wasn't always proud of myself because there are other, "better" comedies out there.  But that's when I laughed the hardest.

God help us if we can no longer laugh when an old man gets into a brawl with a boorish golfer.