Mr. Deeds Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)July 1st, 2002
Planet Sick-Boy: http://www.sick-boy.com
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It's all over. We're doomed. Hightail it to a bomb shelter, if you can find one. Otherwise, just insert your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye. No, we're not under attack by terrorists, a government hell-bent on stripping away every last one of our rights or the corrupt corporate world. I'm talking about something entirely different. I've seen the signs of the apocalypse. They're hard to miss, kids. I know you all saw the first one (The J. Lo marriage bust-up), but the others might have flown under your radar.
The second occurred when a film starring Adam Sandler won one of the most prestigious awards at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival (Best Director Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love). The third also involves Sandler (who played the son of Satan in his last film, Little Nicky), but this harbinger is so evil and so nefarious, I can barely muster the strength to tell you about it. Come close, so I can whisper it to you. A little closer. <Adam Sandler has remade an Oscar-winning Frank Capra film.> Wait! Stop crying! If you've lived a pure life, you won't end up in the place that blasts "The Hanukkah Song" through giant speakers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Capra classic in question is Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, a picture that won the legend a Best Director Oscar back in 1936. In the new Mr. Deeds, Sandler assumes the Gary Cooper role of Longfellow Deeds, a single man from a tiny New England town who inherits a ton of money from a relative he never knew he had. When we first see Sandler's Deeds (don't call him Longfellow, because that's dorky), he's running a pizzeria in Mandrake Falls, New Hampshire, though he longs to be a greeting-card writer for Hallmark (cue a half-dozen silly poems). Deeds doesn't have any family, but he is so close with the locals in Mandrake Falls, he really has everything he needs.
When lily-white tight-asses Chuck Cedar (Peter Gallagher, American Beauty) and Cecil Anderson (Erick Avari, The Glass House) arrive in town and inform Deeds that he has just inherited $40 billion from a recently deceased uncle/international media tycoon, our hero takes it all in stride, partly because he's a boob, but also because he doesn't have much need for money. They tell him he must accompany them to New York City to "sign some papers," and what follows is the typical fish-out-of-water story with a handful of typical Sander gags, which are quite often very funny.
In addition to Chuck and Cecil trying to get him to sign his stock over to them, Deeds also has to contend with an unscrupulous TV tabloid anchor (Jared Harris, How To Kill Your Neighbor's Dog) who forces underling reporter Bunny (Winona Ryder, Lost Souls) to trail the reluctant billionaire and pretend to fall in love with him so his show can get the big scoop. She does, but - oh my God! - she starts to develop actual feelings for him as well. Listen for the scene in which Ryder's character makes up a story about breaking her arm and try to stifle the giggles. She' s no scene-stealer here, but rumor has it that <insert joke here>.
With this film, Sandler has gone back to playing the dimwitted but extremely bighearted guy who might punch out the occasional bully. It's the kind of role that made him such a big star (until the Little Nicky debacle), and his fans will likely eat it all up. What they might have a problem with is his character's saccharine lifestyle. Deeds doesn't curse and insists on hugging everyone he meets. It's all quite nauseatingly sweet. Better is John Turturro (13 Conversations About One Thing) who plays Emilio, a Spanish servant who floats in and out of rooms like Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
1:30 - PG-13 for language including sexual references, and some rear nudity
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