You know Adam Sandler's my guy, right?
I mean I paid good money to see 'Bulletproof' for the love of
God. I know I've mentioned that a thousand times before,
but it was 'Bulletproof' and that can't be overstated
enough. Tragically, Adam has been treating this loyalty
I've been showing him for close to two decades by virtually
kicking me in the cinematic nuts repeatedly, with his last
movie 'Jack
and Jill' sending these
virtual nuts of mine all the way to my virtual lower
intestines. Truly… an awful… awful movie. Yet I
still support my main man, though I did go into his latest
film 'That's my Boy' wearing a virtual steel reinforced
codpiece. As it turns out I really didn't need it
because while 'That's my Boy' is still fairly awful as far as
cinematic qualifications are concerned, it did make me laugh
which is something 'Jack and Jill' completely failed to
do.
You know the story. A thirteen year old boy catches the
attention of his overdeveloped eighth-grade teacher, they
engage in sexual shenanigans with the boy being most afraid
that his abusive dad might find out. So right off the
bat you can see that this is a comedy that has a basis firmly
rooted in statutory rape and child abuse, so you know it's
gonna be funny. And that's just the tip of the iceberg
of tastelessness that you will be subjected to for the next
two hours (!).
The teacher gets knocked up, subsequently thrown in jail for
thirty years for rape, the baby is snatched from her womb and
given to the thirteen year old to raise.
Outstanding. The good thing is the young Donny Berger
has become sort of a national celebrity sensation with talk
shows, TV shows, and all kinds of celebrity type stuff that
come to people with little talent that do wrong in the
80's. Think of Joey Buttafuoco as an example of this
phenomena in action.
Moving things up to the present day, Donny
Berger (Sandler) is a mess and his lawyer (Rex Ryan) informs
him that he's going to jail unless he can come up with 50
large in a couple days to pay back taxes. Turns out his
son, who he hasn't spoken to in years, is a wealthy investment
broker but considering he's changed his name from the awesome
Han Solo Berger to the pedestrian Todd Peterson (Andy Samberg)
chances are he's not too interested in hearing from dad,
especially on the eve of his wedding to the lovely Ms. Jamie
(Leighton Meester).
Is that going to stop Donny from crashing this party? No
it is not because if it did stop him, then where would the
shenanigans come from? And trust me when I tell you that
shenanigans galore shall ensue. Fat jokes, dick jokes,
fart jokes, semen jokes, incest jokes… because quite honestly
nothing busts up a gut like incest… old people jokes, Vanilla
Ice jokes, Todd Bridges jokes, enough profanity to choke a pig
and Tony Orlando talking dirty. There's some disturbing
stuff masquerading as humor in this movie, but Tony Orlando
talking dirty could be the most disturbing of them all.
I'll never watch those lame Time/Life 70's soft rock
infomercials the same again.
Without spending too much time deconstructing the artistic
value of this movie 'That's My Boy', we can say that it's
crass, gross, tasteless, and is devoid of even the most basic
of socially redeeming values. You would be better served
rustling up an old 'Faces of Death' VHS tape if you wanted to
find a movie that is as socially valueless as 'That's My Boy'
and that includes most pornography. This also isn't the
cleverest movie around when it comes to the way the humor is
presented since Happy Madison Productions obviously assumes
that the majority of its audience is either nine years old or
at best has the intellectual capacity of a nine year
old. A slow nine year old at that. So when someone
farts or vomits or tastes semen or dry humps a stripper pole…
we don't need to tax our brains too much because we know
that's supposed to be a joke. New York Jets coach Rex
Ryan… who could very well be Former New York Jets coach Rex
Ryan real soon if things keep going the way his team is going…
feigning love for Patriots coach Bill Belicheck and Patriots
QB Tom Brady is about as taxing as it gets. No need to
dig to deep into the psyche to unearth the Twain-esque
literary references there.
So with a plot as stale as fresh biscotti, and a cast of solid
actors that is ultimately usurped by the thespian talents one
Robert Matthew Van Winkle, 'That's My Boy' does largely
succeed at its only purpose in life, that being making
audience members with thick skin and a high tolerance level
for disgusting tastelessness laugh. The movie was also
somewhat revelatory for me personally, because I had no idea
that my ability to tolerate high levels of tastelessness was
this damn high, but apparently it is. I'm not proud of
this either, but there it is.
No sir, 'That's My Boy' doesn't make
up for travesty that was 'Jack and Jill', nothing can ever
remove that awful stench, but at least it this one manages to
slightly amuse while being offensive as opposed to just being
offensive. And the last time Vanilla Ice and Todd
Bridges were together? Right here
baby. And it was awesome.
