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SYNOPSIS:
Adam Sandler and Kevin James star as best friends and fellow
fire-fighters Chuck and Larry, the pride of their Brooklyn
fire station. Chuck owes Larry for saving his life. Larry
calls in that favour big-time by asking Chuck to pose as his
"domestic partner" so his kids will get his pension.
But when a pen-pushing bureaucrat becomes suspicious, the
two straight tough-guys must stumble through an outrageous
charade as love-struck newlyweds!
MOVIE
REVIEW
One of big screen funniest man, Adam Sandler teams
up with TV funnyman Kevin James to bring you their debut collaboration,
“I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry” helmed
by Sandler’s frequent collaborator, Dennis Dugan.
The
result: A TV-like movie filled up to the brim with gay and
coarse jokes. I’m not saying I’m not a fan of
lowbrow humour, its’ just that “Chuck & Larry”
are liked two overstay occupiers who refused to check out.
The movie started out on a promising note, Chuck (Sandler)
and Larry (James) are two firefighters, best of buddies but
character-wise, as different between the distance of north
and south poles.
Chuck
is a womanizer, in short surrounded by beautiful woman (Hooters
girls included) everyday for the past 20 years. Larry is a
widower with 2 kids and trying hard to find an insurance beneficiary.
At least in the event of his demise, his kids are well taken
care of. Catch is he has to find someone to re-marry, someone
whom he can trust and the task falls into the hands of Chuck
who owed Larry a huge favour.
Since
it’s a life-saving situation here, Chuck reluctantly
agree and this fictitious gay couple has to deal with stereotyping
at work (the shower scene in the station is pretty tickling),
home (where a government officer who is assigned to investigate
sham marriages, played by Steve Buscemi turned up frequently
at their doorstep on a surprise basis) and to make matters
worse, Chuck decides to get hanky-panky with their lawyer,
Alex (Jessica Biel) thus threatening their fragile facade.
Unfortunately,
I assumed much of the original script is thrown away during
shooting and the protagonists have a field time improvising
the dialogues. Some apparently work and some do not which
explains that the duration runs to almost 2 hours. The gay
party sequence tried hard to wring in some laughs but failed
to live up to what Sean William Scott did in “American
Pie 3”. And Sandler pretending to be innocently squeezing
Biel’s assets is a tad cringing to watch. Rob Schneider
on the other hand with unrecognizable makeover committed the
worst case of stereotyping as a goofy Japanese chapel owner.
I’m
not that well informed whether the fact that all gays/homosexuals
like to dress as a fairy during costume parties or has a particular
penchant for strong muscular partners. But I’m sure
there’s a character around us liked Duncan, a newly
transfer fire-fighter to the station (rather surprising turnout
by Ving Rhames) who is afraid to come out of the closet.
Adam
Sandler is much likeable and funnier in movies such as “50
First Dates” and “Click”, whereas as the
foul-mouth, womanizing Chuck, he’s neither both. String
together by some loose setups and weak jokes, “Chuck
& Larry” is good for one watch unless you constantly
crave for Jessica Biel in her undies.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
Deleted Scenes with optional commentary by director Dennis
Dugan – 7 scenes in total which runs an approximately
9 minutes. Take a look at some of the funny exchanges between
Chuck and Larry that were excised.
Laughing
Is Contagious – A behind the scenes look at
the cast having fun and also Adam Sandler contributing a deadly
silent fart.
I
Now Pronounce You Husband…and Husband –
Again, a five minutes behind the scenes feature with the cast
and crew patting on each other’s back.
Look
Who Stopped By – A segment dedicated to all
the cameos in the movie including David Spade as a horrendously-looking
transvestite, Allen Covert, Dave Matthews, Richard Chamberlain
and of course in recent times, one of the most famous gay
in the industry, Lance Bass.
Stop,
Drop and Roll – Interview with Sandler and
James on how some of the fire-fighting and stunt sequences
are executed in the movie. Behind the scenes footages included.
Dugan:
Hands-On Director – The cast and crew talks
about how great it is to work with Dugi, Dugan’s nick
I guess. He cameos as the cab driver in the movie by the way.
Audio
Commentary with Adam Sandler, Kevin James and Dennis Dugan
– This is a fun track to follow given the participation
of funnymen Sandler and James.
Audio
Commentary with Director Dennis Dugan – I do
not know why there are two commentary tracks here since Dugan
was also present in the prior track as some of the info pretty
much overlapped. Dugan can be a bit dry and monotonous at
times but if you are interested in more technical aspects
of the movie, you can lap this up as well.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Presented in anamorphic widescreen, the transfer is reasonably
well done for such a recent movie.
Dialogue
which constitutes a large portion of the movie is clear and
the ambience effects during the fire-fighting scene and disco
party is well-handled. How about hearing Sandler and James
speaking Cantonese for a change?
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Linus Tee
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