Sandler and Spade entertain each other more than the audience.
The boldest compliment one can pay to The Do-Over, Adam Sandler’s second of four Netflix-exclusive feature films, is that it’s a vast improvement over his last one, The Ridiculous 6. Unlike that slapstick western trainwreck, The Do-Over boasts a more or less coherent story, a few legitimately funny beats, and a mildly compassionate heart buried deep beneath its violent, dated brand of comedy. Other than that though, it’s pretty dreadful.
The story is told from the perspective of Charlie McMillan (David Spade). Charlie, we learn from his own narration, is the definition of a loser. He lives in the same house he grew up in, drives the car he had in high school, and has a depressing job managing a bank located inside a supermarket. His wife openly cheats on him and his stepchildren abuse him mercilessly.
Everything starts to change for Charlie when he reconnects with his high school best friend Max (Sandler) at their 25th reunion. That these two are way older than a 25th reunion should allow isn’t as big a deal as it might be, partly because of a running joke about pretending to be older than they are in order to seem uncommonly virile to women or something. Compared to the rest of the movie that makes perfect sense.
Max hears Charlie’s tale of woe and decides with little preamble to stage both their deaths. He’s able to pull this feat off in short order, but he may have chosen the wrong pair of bodies to plant in the boat he blows up. A series of seemingly impossible coincidences soon sets the two on a grand adventure filled with sex, guns, crappy CG visual gags, and an uncomfortable amount of gay jokes.
The road trip comedy is still a fertile sub-genre and Spade and Sandler might have some gas left in their respective tanks. Unfortunately, you’d never know it from this movie because every aspect of it comes off as hugely lazy and undercooked. Frequent Sandler enabler Steven Brill has little interest in actually directing his stars, who seem to be enjoying a vacation together, pausing only momentarily between drink orders to phone in their lines.
Remember how wonderful Sandler was in Funny People, able to convey great depths of anguish through a hardened mask of celebrity? Or the one who could draw laughs and tears at will in Punch Drunk Love? Where did that guy go?
In The Do-Over Sandler is basically the same schlub we met in Pixels. He's another grumpy, apathetic boor who occasionally exudes halfhearted charm or passive aggression in-between emotional comas. The only difference is here he's inexplicably a Special Forces-level gunslinger instead of video game wizard. Despite his affectless style of cool, he’s treated by those around him as a magnetic leader, while Spade delivers his typical take on the where-did-my-dreams-go loser cliché, basically playing a hopeless version of Joe Dirt sans endearing bravado.
In more than just the obvious sense, The Do-Over is the perfect name for this movie because it repeats tired, outdated tropes ad nauseum. Such thematic synergy hardly seems intentional, given how diluted each successive payoff becomes. The first time two characters are interrupted by one of them suddenly getting shot by an unseen assassin there’s a fair amount of surprise. The second time that same assassin pulls the same stunt, not so much. That sort of recycling happens way too frequently, like when character after character is revealed to be gay as some sort of punchline. Maybe in the SNL heyday of these two aging stars that would have gotten a laugh the first time around. But even in the '90s the second and third attempts wouldn’t be funny. By today’s standards, this sort of schtick is at best boring and at worst offensively crude.
The worst repetition The Do-Over is guilty of is, however, being predictable. Unable to deliver a novel twist, the movie instead aims for volume. Max repeatedly discloses that no, in fact, he is not really an FBI agent. Or a coroner. Or whatever he says he is next. Each of the many times someone winds up in a life-threatening situation another character who has no business being nearby will swoop in to bail them out. A wolf-in-sheep’s clothing villain is glaringly obvious to even semi-conscious viewers from the start. And so on. Worst of all, the eventual unraveling of Sandler’s true motivations is so laboriously explained (complete with unnecessary Usual Suspects-style flashbacks) that it loses any possible dramatic weight, even though there’s clearly a heartfelt intention to redeem these affable outcasts.
The Do-Over is intended to appeal to the lowest common denominator of vintage Sandler aficionados and Happy Madison completionists. It has very few genuine laughs and makes more than a few questionable tonal choices. It's at least better than Sandler's last effort for Netflix though, which could bode well for the future. If his on-demand movies continue on this trajectory maybe his third outing will be objectively decent and the fourth an instant classic.
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The Verdict
Miles away from being an objectively good movie, The Do-Over is at least somewhat better than Sandler's last Netflix exclusive, The Ridiculous Six. Nevertheless, it's only suitable for people with way too much time on their hands.
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