I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry – 2.5 stars
As a social experiment, I would like to run this movie at Oberlin or Brown during Pride Week. In preparation, it would probably be best to stock up on smelling salts, fainting couches, and emergency room personnel.
The set-up is standard Sandler. Two best friends and Brooklyn firefighters (Adam Sandler and Kevin James) pretend to be gay so they can establish a domestic partnership which will ensure benefits for James’ children. James is a widower. Sandler is a cocksman, bedding Hooters gals 5 at a time.
But then the city gets wind of the potential fraud, they must retain a beautiful lawyer (Jessica Biel) for whom Sandler falls, they become a cause celebre’, and hijinks ensue.
On the one hand, there’s scads of ass, tits, fart, balls, dick, poop, and pee jokes, overweight people are mercilessly skewered, and racial and ethnic stereotypes abound. No matter the subject or target, the Sandler brand is respected.
Indeed, this is the kind of landmine film that would normally result in serious reputational damage, like blackface. A few nuggets:
- Rob Schneider plays gay and Asian. And by Asian, I mean, Bucktooth, Charlie Chan, as stereotypically offensive as it gets Asian.
- Dave Matthews plays in a wordless cameo where he mincingly makes eyes at Sandler. One can assume that his desire to make it to the big screen obliterated all judgment.
- When James goes to his child’s bring your father to school day, the following exchange occurs-
“Student:
Mr. Valentine, you said you’re a fireman.
Larry
Valentine: Yes, that is correct.
Student
Do you have two jobs? Because my dad said that you’re also a butt pirate.”
- Dan Ackroyd plays their fire chief. His admonition?
“Gentlemen, I have a very simple policy. What you shove up your ass is your own business.”
- And when Larry springs his scheme on Chuck?
Larry
Valentine: Domestic partnership.
Chuck
Levine: Domestic partnership? You mean like faggots?
Larry
Valentine: No, I mean yeah but, no, not us. Obviously. Just on paper.
Larry
Valentine: Well, the accepted vernacular is “gay”… but yes.
I mean, if Gone with the Wind requires a warning, this thing should come with a signed waiver.
So, how did anyone who had anything to do with this film remain unscathed? I have thoughts.
First, the consistency of the folks with the torches and pitchforks has never been their strong suit. Some people get eviscerated, others get a pass. Here, everybody seems to have gotten a pass, which is to the good. I suspect the body count would have simply been too high.
Second, for all of its excess, the picture is “up-with-people, we-are-the-world” inclusive. While the film luxuriates in its offensive stereotypes, it offers redemptions (unlike, say, Animal House, which is similarly politically incorrect yet doggedly cynical). At the end, Ackroyd provides the necessary immunity:
The fist of stereotype encased in the velvet glove of love.
Third, it is also not terrible. Like with Get Hard, I laughed more than I expected to and was impressed by the sheer gusto of James and Sandler. A solid A for effort if not execution.
Fourth, the anti-gay bigots get a comeuppance (which is a word that, were it to be in the script, would soon be followed by “ass” or “butt”). Sandler even gets to play Harrison Ford amongst the Amish in Witness, because, as everyone knows, gay people don’t punch their tormentors, they only sass them.
Finally, the picture was fortunate to precede the most recent spate of witch trials (see Bradley Cooper’s insensitive Jewish nose in the new Leonard Bernstein endeavor). This is 2007, which seems modern, but it is almost a quarter of a century ago.
Watch it. It’s worth the time for historiographic purposes. And the ass, tits, fart, balls, dick, poop, and pee jokes.
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