Mr. Deeds

Movie Title: Mr. Deeds
Official Website (it might still work): Mr. Deeds
Rating (out of 10): 4
Reviewed By: Michael Stevens
Buy the: Video/DVD \| Soundtrack
The Review:

Who would re-make a film that virtually no-one has ever heard of? Adam Sandler would! And why not, everything else he seems to make turns into a hit at the box office, despite the lowbrow comedy that proliferates his pictures. Personally, I like lowbrow comedy, but only occasionally, and only in small doses, not all film long.

As to the story, Longfellow Deeds (Sandler, Little Nicky) is a country bumpkin from Mandrake Falls, a small town in New Hampshire (so he says beeerz instead of beers). He is very content in his life as a pizza parlor owner and greeting card poet wanabe. He loves everyone else in his town, and everyone else loves him back. Then one day, along comes a fancy pants businessman by the name of Chuck Cedar (Peter Gallagher, American Beauty) who informs Deeds that he is the heir to a media empire run by his now deceased uncle, an uncle he never met or even knew about. The company is worth about $40 billion. Mr. Cedar tells Deeds that all he needs to do is sell Cedar all the shares of the company and then Deeds can retire as a billionaire. This shady businessman has socially irresponsible plans for the media company that he fails to inform Deeds about, otherwise Deeds probably wouldn’t sell the company. Also during this time, troubled tabloid TV reporter Pam Dawson (Winona Ryder, Lost Souls) is busy trying to get Deeds into compromising situations that the naïve Deeds easily falls for. This includes the highlight of the film with tennis legend and bad boy John McEnroe taking Deeds out for a night on the town in NYC. Throw in Emilio (John Turturro, Collateral Damage) as the sneaky fast butler with a serious foot fetish, and Mr. Deeds delivers some good laughs, but never really enough of them to make up for other deficiencies.

Others in this Steven Brill directed film are Conchata Ferrell (K-PAX), Sandler cohorts Steve Buscemi and Rob Schneider, Peter Dante, Jared Harris, Allen Covert, J.B. Smoove, Roark Critchlow, and Erick Avari (The Glass House) as the cool lawyer Cecil Anderson.

I have never been a big fan of Adam Sandler’s movies, and Mr. Deeds does little to change that opinion. It seems that in every film Sandler’s character is an underdog type person who overcomes all obstacles and succeeds in the end (plus falls in love and gets the girl). Same formula for all the movies, same type of humor, same results at the theater, a box office hit with critical disdain. Mr. Deeds is funny at times, but it just does not float my boat. Four couches out of ten, which I do think beats Little Nicky.

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Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:48:02 AM

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