Time to go in the exact opposite direction of the documentary movies and onto the Adam Sandler college football comedy, The Waterboy.
Sandler plays Bobby Boucher, the waterboy for a major college football program who is fired and has to go work for a much less prestigous school also in the nearby vicinity. Always picked on, Boucher takes a lot of crap from everybody, until he finally snaps and learns to channel all of his anger onto the football field. With encouragement from Coach Klien (the Fonz himself, Henry Winkler) and his love interest (Fairuza Balk, American History X), Boucher becomes one of the best defensive players in the nation and the sparkplug to pull his team of misfits from their losing ways.
Most of the comedy from the movie is derived from the ridiculous way Sandler plays the character, stammering constantly in a ridiculous voice. This is blended with a goofy supporting cast, including Rob Schneider playing the "You can DO IT!" guy in his first (and only necessary) appearence in Sandler comedies.
Overall its a pretty silly movie with some laughs, falling somewhere in the middle to low range of Sandler's movies. Some people seem to have the tendency to label Sandler a one trick pony, a critiscm that I don't think is all that fair. In Punch-Drunk Love and Happy Gilmore, I think Sandler gives two of the better comedic roles I have ever seen, and those movies are quite different from one another. It is in the roles like The Waterboy and Little Nicky where the whole funny voice gimmick starts to feel like an overly streched out SNL sketch and gets a little tedious.
It's probably unfair to group this with the likes of the movies I have written about so far, but its my list and I can do what I want to. I'll get some more comedies in here soon (including another Sandler film nonetheless) to make this one look a little more at home.
Football Movie Rankings
1) Brian's Song (1971)
2) Knute Rockne All American (1940)
3) Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? (2009)
4) Varsity Blues (1999)
5) The Band That Wouldn't Die (2009)
6) Invincible (2006)
1) Brian's Song (1971)
2) Knute Rockne All American (1940)
3) Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? (2009)
4) Varsity Blues (1999)
5) The Band That Wouldn't Die (2009)
6) Invincible (2006)
7) The Waterboy (1998)
8) Two For the Money (2005)
8) Two For the Money (2005)
dangit...i was really pulling for this one to rank higher!
ReplyDeleteagreed...but a great movie nonetheless
ReplyDeletei might bump it up a spot or two next week. Invincible kind of grows more and more sour on me as the time since Ive seen it grows longer.
ReplyDeletesome stuff is coming in below Waterboy in the near future though...including Sandler's other football movie.