** (out of four stars)
Starring Adam Sandler, Al Pacino, Katie Holmes, and Eugino Derbez
Directed by Dennis Dugan
Rated PG for crude and sexual humor, language, comic violence and brief smoking
Running time: 93 minutes
The trailer for Adam Sandler’s Jack and Jill looked like one of those fake Sandler movies that populated the background of Judd Apatow’s Funny People, all of which seemed like bad comedies that Sandler feasibly could have made. There was something about seeing Sandler in drag playing a New York Jewish female stereotype, who catches the eye of Al Pacino, in that trailer that pushed it from the realm of revolting, into being downright surreal, much like seeing him briefly play a blubbering merman in Funny People. Sandler has two modes: exceedingly normal guy (50 First Dates, Click), or exceedingly obnoxious guy who does fucking unbearable things with his voice for the film’s entire running time (The Waterboy, Little Nicky). In Jack and Jill, he gets to do both.
It goes without saying that Sandler plays the titular twins, both of whom are freakishly different. Jack is a successful ad man living in Los Angeles, his job providing plenty of opportunities for the producers to assault the audience with product placement. His wife (Katie Holmes, on loan from L. Ron Hubbard’s compound), is a non-entity sitting pretty, while his adopted Indian son enjoys taping things to his body, such as hamsters and lobsters. Jill, on the other hand, is a kooky mess, and lives a lonely existence with a bird in the Bronx. She comes to visit her brother in L.A., and ends up staying longer than Jack would prefer.
Meanwhile, Jack is trying to score a advertising deal with Dunkin’ Donuts (guess what company we see a lot of in this movie?), and unless Jack can get Al Pacino himself to hawk their Dunkacinno beverage in a commercial, he loses them as a client. While Jack tries to woo Pacino, Pacino ends up becoming wooed by Jill, however his affections for her are not returned. Pacino gives Jack an ultimatum: if Al doesn’t get the gal, Jack doesn’t get his commercial. And of course, Jack learns to accept his sister along the way, and that other lite Capra-corn stuff that always comes with Sandler’s films.
If you didn’t think the idea of Adam Sandler playing a twin in drag was funny in the trailer, the movie itself isn’t going to change your mind. That said, while Jack and Jill‘s trailer looks like a new low for him, it’s actually nowhere near the worst thing he’s done. The movie’s best moments come with Al Pacino playing himself as a violent, emotional trainwreck, which comes while poking fun at his persona, from his love of Shakespeare, to his reputation as a method actor. Seeing him shill for Duncan Donuts, though, may have ruined The Godfather for me for the forseeable future. To bring up a few of Pacino’s contemporaries, it’s not going to go up there with Robert De Niro’s turn in Meet the Parents, but it beats out what Jack Nicholson did with Sandler in Anger Management.
Sandler usually gets a pass from people my age who fondly remember movies like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, his films since being a kind of comfort food, even when they’re not any good. There’s a sequence in Jack and Jill that hits the sweet spot of that brand of random humor found in his better movies, in which Jill goes to a celebration with a family of Mexican immigrants. The scene is relentless in its rapid-fire comedy, every gag coming straight out of left field, and it reminds you of what Sandler is capable of when he’s actually trying.
Jack and Jill doesn’t live down to the hideously bad attempts at comedy seen in the trailer, but that’s not to say it’s anything resembling a good film. It’s just another Adam Sandler comedy, it’s definitely better than some he’s made, and certainly worse than others. Chances are, your mind is already made up as to whether or not you’re seeing it, and this review will not affect that decision. Adam Sandler’s brand of junk food is critic-proof, and it’s ultimately pretty harmless, so who cares?
