Just trust your instincts

Adam Sandler and director Dennis Dugan, together again. Depending on who you are, it’s either the greatest pairing since Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks or the worst since the last time that Sandler and Dugan plopped their cinematic road apples onto theatres everywhere.

They’ve teamed up for You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry and seven others including this new one, another conversationally titled masterpiece called Just Go With It. James L. Brooks must be proud.

Sandler plays pick up artist Danny Maccabee, a guy who knows how to play all the angles in order to bed whichever beautiful woman he chooses. Affairs of the heart are not as much a concern to him as affairs of the loins. He keeps a fake wedding ring handy just in case it might prove to be a valuable prop in his quests and conquests.

As fate would have it, one day he actually finds the woman of his dreams. Palmer (Brooklyn Decker) is someone he likes enough to want to stick with but she discovers the ring and becomes understandably upset. In order to continue to woo her with true and good intentions, he has to keep up the ruse by extending the lie to ridiculous proportions. He says that he is actually finalizing his divorce with his actual best friend and co-worker Katherine Murphy (Jennifer Aniston). To prove that this fictional relationship is real, he has to introduce his new love to his ‘former’ one. Lies get stacked upon lies, some feelings get hurt while others get stronger … don’t we all just see where this is going. This movie should be included in a DVD box set with The Dilemma.

Escapism is so wonderful because you can really just throw all sense and sensibility out the window. Throw your wallet out the window too since you obviously don’t care about how you spend your entertainment dollar. I’ve derived more inspired wonderment by staring into the fridge than in 10 years of watching Sandler purvey his particular brand of humour.

I used to say there’s no accounting for taste. Now, I can state that when it comes to Sandler, there’s no accounting for tastelessness. The guy can turn morbid obesity into a major plot development. Childhood traumas and phobias including an embarrassing inability to swim … all fodder for mass amusement. He plays a cosmetic surgeon so you know he’s going to make fun of someone needing breast reduction surgery. The man might have just gotten a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame but he’ll never come close to a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. The man is anathema to propriety.

Dan ends up bribing Katherine and her two children to go along with the jig so that he can put another notch on his belt. This is a PG movie with unfortunate moral choices. I only gave it such a high rating because it was well cast and had a decent enough storyline based on a French play called Fleur de Cactus.

Of course in the end he falls more in love with Aniston. This is the film’s salient point, that you might as well just tell the truth and see what’s right in front of you your whole life than lie, cheat and steal your way to misery. The book of philosophy by Sandler is barely a page long, each word with only a syllable at most. His next act of brilliance will probably involve a ne’er-do-well cop with explosive diarrhea but a heart of gold when it comes to dyslexic children of supermodels. I much prefer to look out my front windows.