Jack and Jill (Dennis Dugan, 2011)

Director Paul Thomas Anderson claims to be a fan of Adam Sandler, he says his movies make him feel happy on a rainy day. I am pretty sure Anderson will withdraw this comment after seeing the disturbingly bad Jack and Jill.

Sandler is not a bad actor if written and directed properly. Anderson showed the world how good an actor Adam Sandler can be with his Punch Drunk Love. Unfortunately the movies Sandler writes and produces himself are going downhill over the years, I presume he reached the bottom with his latest disaster because it couldn’t get any worse in my opinion.

Jack (Adam Sandler) is pretty successful in his work (commercials) and private life. He has a nice wife (Katie Holmes, perhaps Tom Cruise is Sandler fan as well….) and two kids. Jack is one of twins, his sister Jill (Adam Sandler, yes, Adam Sandler as well!!!) is coming over to celebrate their birthday together at his place. Their mom died recently and Jill is lonely. Jack is pretty far from happy about her visit and wishes her to leave as fast as possible. Until Al Pacino (you are reading this correctly, Al Pacino is playing himself in this movie) makes him realize how his sister feels and that he should love her.

Like you probably guessed already, this movie is absolute horror. Not only is it not funny at all (maybe I smiled once or twice tops) its story is total crap, this is not uncommon for Sandler, but if what he presents us is at least a bit funny (which it was, especially at the start of his career, I still like The Waterboy or Happy Gilmore, even though they are bad movies as well) its forgivable to have a completely trivial or even ridiculous plot. Now he just bores you to death. The main problem is that two Sandler characters are simply too much, some of his recent movies were tolerable because he casts funny actors (Steve Buscemi, John Turturro) but this movie could have simply been named  ‘Too much Sandler’.

The only time I smiled probably was when two big names, Johnny Depp and Al Pacino, were introduced in the movie. Depp, wearing a Justin Bieber shirt (made me smile), disappears soon, Pacino sticks but can’t save a ship that never floated in the first place. I like how Pacino doesn’t take himself serious at all (there is a nice joke about his Oscar, here I smiled for the second and last time) but again, his contribution doesn’t make this movie worth watching for even a minute.

I hope Sandler, who already stated that he doesn’t care about all the criticism (he is nominated for 11 Razzies!), chooses to make a couple movies that are written and directed by capable and creative people (how much better was he already in for instance Funny People). According to the imdb there is a movie coming up that is not from his Happy Madison production company, so there might be hope…..what he is doing at the moment is disturbing and should not be associated with cinema in any way.

1/10