Mr. Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

I have had more than a few people tell me that Adam Sandler reminds them of a class clown they once knew in high school. They say he was exactly like the goofy guy who used to sit in the back of the class and crack jokes or do funny voices while the teacher would conduct a lesson. This was the same guy who used to squirt milk out of his nose, shoot the best spitballs at people's hair, or look the other way every time he aired his flatulence for all to "enjoy."

I beg to differ. Adam Sandler reminds me more of the class idiot. Every class has at least one. Some had several. The class idiot was the guy who thought he could fly so he jumped off his roof, and today he is paralyzed. The class idiot was the guy who dropped a barbell on his mouth and knocked his front teeth out. He was the guy who got caught spanking the monkey in the bathroom or was arrested for shoplifting from the school store.

The difference between the two? The class clown always graduated with his class. The class idiot NEVER graduated. He may have last been heard from sophomore year. He may have wound up in reform school or just quit education altogether to become the overnight gas-station attendant.

Adam Sandler is the class idiot who went on and became a multimillion-dollar success in the entertainment industry. There is always something familiar about his comedy. It's childish, it's dumb, it's for people who still laugh when someone trips and falls on his face. His movies are basically made for anyone who went to high school with Sandler and anyone who wishes they went to high school with him.

Sandler's new movie is Mr. Deeds. What can I say? I laughed! Not a lot. In fact, not once in the first 20 minutes. And I gotta say, I didn't believe the movie for one single instant, even when it eventually started clicking for me. But Mr. Deeds throws so many gags at you that after a while you switch off the critical part of your brain and give yourself over to the idiocy. This movie is a must-see for Sandler fans, and a must-rent for those who routinely wait for Sandler's pictures to hit video or pay-per-view. If you are not a Sandler fan on any level, avoid this thing like Winona Ryder tries to avoid department-store security cameras. You just won't get it.

Sandler stars as Longfellow Deeds, the latest in a long line of Sandleresque, good-natured simpletons who go up against snobby, powerful, cynical people (in this case, evil corporate raider Peter Gallagher) and triumph. Deeds is the kind of guy who says things like "wicked, cool" and "bullspit." He hugs everyone he meets. His life's dream? To write mushy, corny greeting cards for Hallmark, of course.

The movie's plot centers on this small-town New Hampshire boy inheriting $40 billion from a deceased corporate-mogul uncle he never knew he had. Gallagher is the chief executive who wants Deeds to sign over his shares in the company so that he can strip and sell it for enormous profit, putting thousands of people out of work. At the same time, the corrupt media is looking for dirt on the too-perfect Deeds. Ryder plays Babe, a hard-charging tabloid reporter who is out to steal Deeds' heart and get his story via a microphone and camera hidden in her bra.

When the movie focuses on Sandler's tried-and-true gags of bashing bad people with his fists and talking googly sweet to Ryder, it's stale and pedestrian. However, I must say there has never been a Sandler movie that has had this many truly endearing and funny supporting players and standalone comic sequences. John Turturro is an absolute scream as Deeds' butler, a guy with an intense foot fetish and a talent for being able to appear and disappear seemingly out of thin air. John McEnroe has a funny cameo as himself, who early on takes Deeds out on the town for a night of heavy drinking and car egging. And Steve Buscemi has loads of fun as a small-town bum with the freakiest eyes you've ever seen. Laughs are also gleaned at the expense of an overpaid NFL quarterback, a pompous opera singer, and Ryder's trash-TV cohorts.

The best scene in the movie involves Deeds coming to the rescue of a Jamaican woman and her seven cats, trapped in a burning building. Deeds saves the kitties and the lady by tossing them out her kitchen window one by one to a police trampoline several stories below. The cats bounce into the arms of a variety of silly characters, including former "Saturday Night Live" alum Rob Schneider.

But just as there are sequences that work splendidly, there are just as many that fall flat. As I mentioned earlier, the first 20 or so minutes are so poorly written and edited, it's like I was watching the beginning of Rat Race again. Meanwhile, Deeds' Mayberry-like hometown of Mandrake Falls, N.H., is a dead-end laugh trap, with only Buscemi doing something remotely interesting or funny. And I really wish they had let the McEnroe scenes play out longer.

I do like the fact that Sandler makes un-cynical movies for an increasingly cynical and pessimistic world. He'll never score good with the critics or the indie-film circuit. Heck, the guy doesn't even do print interviews. But what he does do is churn out the same safe comedy product time after time. Sandler knows his audience, and he clearly has fun just stepping onto his movie sets in his cheap blue jeans and two-day-old beard growth to play around with good sports like Gallagher, Turturro, and Buscemi each time out (previous Sandler movies have attracted everyone from Harvey Keitel to Henry Winkler).

And he gets paid ridiculously high sums to do so. Mr. Deeds is based on the great Frank Capra comedy, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. In that movie, the title character inherited $20 million. Decades later, Deeds' inheritance has skyrocketed to $40 billion.

Hey, just think, $20 mill would barely pay for Sandler's base salary today. Class idiot no more, huh?

Mr. Deeds is rated PG-13 for mild fisticuff violence and language. Anytime someone curses around a woman, Sandler does do the gentlemanly thing and punches the living daylights out of the potty mouth.