director
Frank Coraci
screenwriters
Tim Herlihy
Adam Sandler
producers
Jack Giarraputo
Robert Simonds
cinematographer
Steven Bernstein
music
Alan Pasqua
editor
Tom Lewis
cast
Adam Sandler (Bobby Boucher)
Kathy Bates (Mama Boucher)
Henry Winkler (Coach Klein)
Fairuza Balk (Vicki Vallencourt)
Jerry Reed (Head Coach Beaulieu)
Larry Gilliard Jr. (Derek Wallace)
Clint Howard (Paco)
mpaa rating: PG-13
running
time: 90m
u.s.
release: November 6,
1998
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
|
Now
that Jim Carrey is testing deeper waters, Hollywood's mantle
of the Golden Idiot has been passed to Adam Sandler, who has
quietly and modestly built one of the major careers of recent
years. It's easy to see why: Sandler plays regular guys -- not
stupid, but maybe a little slow; ambitious, but not heartless
-- who go up against the big guys and win on their own terms.
Not terribly original, but nothing much wrong with it, either.
Sandler is also genuinely funny; he sits down with some buddies
to work on his scripts, and leaves in all the goofy, silly stuff
("What if we did this? .... Nah, man, we can't do that")
most writers would leave out.
The result has been some uneven but often wildly funny comedies.
Happy Gilmore, from 1996, and The Wedding Singer,
from earlier this year, both pack considerable charm and more
than a few classic bits (like the Bob Barker scene in Happy
Gilmore). Sandler's new one, The Waterboy, reunites
the Wedding Singer team of Sandler buddies (director Frank
Coraci, co-writer Tim Herlihy) and has already been described
as a fusion of the rude-boy sports-fan Sandler of Happy Gilmore
and the kinder, gentler Sandler of The Wedding Singer.
Possibly, but his character this time, Bobby Boucher, is funnier
than Happy or Robbie Hart.
The minute Sandler opens his mouth in The Waterboy, you're
either irritated (as Roger Ebert was) or completely with him.
Sandler speaks in a soft, zonked-out stutter with a dash of Louisiana
accent. It's not the stutter so much as the doofus voice that
struck me funny, spruced up by the unexpected appearance of words
like "profusely" or "discourteous." Sandler's
Bobby Boucher is a mild-mannered man-child, 31 years old and
still under the thumb of his beloved mama (Kathy Bates). Booted
from the college football team where he serves as a "water
distribution engineer," Bobby finds work providing water
to an underdog team coached by Henry Winkler, who sees a hidden
talent in Bobby. Sufficiently riled up, Bobby can deliver bone-crushing
tackles.
The Waterboy and Happy Gilmore will make good companion
videos. Happy stormed up to the tee and whacked the ball as if
going for a slap shot; Bobby goes into football with a similarly
bullheaded, aggressive approach. These movies are about how a
sad sack turns a flaw into a personal style, and that's why the
repeated scenes of Happy or Bobby doing their thing don't become
tiresome: We see how these sports rebels keep doing the same
thing over and over until the fans start getting into it and
loving it. We begin to see their shtick as a rude kind of integrity.
Fairuza Balk is around, too, as a hell-raiser with a bad rep;
she's drawn to Bobby for the same reason all women are attracted
to Sandler in his movies -- he loses his aggressiveness around
women, and turns rather shy and sweet. Sandler and the usually
rough-edged Balk have a gentle rapport. Everything leads to the
big game, though the momentum is derailed by a long hospital
sequence and a revelation that invalidates Bobby's fixation on
water. I could've lived without the last scene, and the cameo
of one of Sandler's fellow Saturday Night Live alumni
wears out its welcome after the fifth or sixth insert of him.
Still, like most Sandler films, The Waterboy is scrappy
and funny and achieves its modest aim, which is to make us laugh
like grade-schoolers. The doofus boy triumphs again. |
