Happy Gilmore

Adam Sandler may not be the all-round actor who can deliver many different comic performances but he does have a certain comic style. Happy Gilmore is a failed Hockey player who cannot skate and has a lack of any self-discipline. His life seems to be a complete failure until he finds out he can hit a golf ball over 400 yards. At first you might feel little empathy for Happy as he obviously deserves all the bad luck he gets from the way he treats his friends. But the introduction of Shooter to the screen suddenly makes you root for the underdog. The plot is thrown together to get the most out of Sandler and his antics on screen. Some of the scenes are totally unbelievable particularly when a car is driven on to the golf course to run down Happy! But no matter how many times I see the film it can still make me laugh.

In Happy Gilmore, Sandler plays the part of a determined hockey player who doesn't make the team but soon inadvertently discovers that his hockey skills translate very nicely onto the golf green. Until the point in the film where Happy begins playing golf, most of the laughs come from his misfortune (`Happy Gilmore… I called your name, didn't I?' [eagerly] `No, you didn't.' `Oh, well, better luck next year!!'), but it is the conflictive interaction between himself as a self-proclaimed hockey player and the much more formal and (for lack of a better word) high class game of golf that makes up the majority of the entertainment for the rest of the film.

There is clearly a take on the classic odd-couple comedy structure here, as Sandler's vulgar hockey habits collide with the neatness and formality of the golf green, and for the most part, this comedy scheme works pretty well here. Sandler seems to adopt the character of Happy Gilmore with great relish as he displays violent acts of hilariously misplaced aggression, clearly foreshadowing his similar actions as Bobby Boucher in The Waterboy. Indeed, some of the funniest parts of the film come from his lengthy streams of profanity at the misbehaved ball when it doesn't go where he wants it to go (`PIECE!! OF!! MONKEY *beep*!!').

So you have an undeniably entertaining and amusing character who does undeniably funny things, but it is at the logical level that this film falls on its face. Luckily for the movie and for its fans, this is not the most important element of a movie like this. It's not very likely that a slob like Happy, who doesn't make the hockey team, is going to suddenly find himself bringing in thousands and thousands of dollars left and right, and stick to his plan to buy his grandmother's house back. You would think that, having seen that he can make that much money, he would at least have kept going for a while instead of quitting as soon as he had accumulated enough to buy back the house. A noble cause, obviously, but no red blooded American male on the planet is going to just quit the game because he prefers hockey or he hates his lead opponent. But who cares? Sandler delivers the steady stream of laughs as Gilmore with such skill that the comedy of the film far overshadows any such imperfections.

Gilmore himself seems to be a bit overly violent in scenes where it doesn't seem entirely necessary, and there is clearly some overdone product placement, but it doesn't take away from the rest of the film. Mike Meyers made brilliant use of product placement in Wayne's World in such ways that added hugely to the comedy of the film (although he tripped over this technique in Austin Powers 2, when he made it massively over-emphasized and stonily unamusing), and the excessive violence of the Gilmore character is justified (although just barely) by the fact that his imperfect characteristics make his efforts (or lack thereof) to fit in with professional golfers even more amusing. As the pros stand around sipping expensive wine and discussing their respective accomplishments, Happy walks in asking where the pinball machine and the keg are. They want fame and recognition, he wants money and beer (and Virginia, the sexy reporter who fills the role of the obligatory love interest in the typical Sandler film).

There are a lot of scenes in Happy Gilmore that, as much as I personally enjoy the movie, simply fall flat (many of which involve the homeless guy who Happy employs as his caddie, or the nutcase that Shooter McGavin employs to destroy Gilmore's chances of winning the tournament, or anything involving Chubbs' prosthetic hand) but the film succeeds where it is supposed to. Sandler presents Gilmore as a strangely likeable character, despite all of his destructive habits, and the film is peppered with other notable performances, not the least of which are by Carl Weathers as Chubbs, the former golf pro who takes upon himself the immense task of taming the wild Gilmore, and Christopher MacDonald, in yet another brilliantly hate-able role as the immutable Shooter McGavin.

Happy Gilmore is a comedy from Adam Sandler, which means that you already know what kind of movie that you are going to get here, so don't complain if it turns out to be what you expected. Sandler does not make award-winning films, and chances are he never will, but the comedic value of Happy Gilmore is unquestionable. It is, to sum it up just as briefly as movies like this can be summed up, a perfect example of what I like to call Fast Food Cinema. It's a lot of fun, but there's no nutritional value.

Recipe for a prime Adam Sandler comedy: dream up a ridiculous, one-note concept, plaster it with silly side gags, stretch the whole thing to fill ninety minutes and... somehow succeed in spite of yourself. There's no way this rudimentary formula should work so well, but here's Exhibit B, and I'm still laughing.

Sandler in the mid-90s was a roiling ocean of slapstick brilliance, totally superficial and meaningless but all the more endearing for it. Here, of course, he's the brainless hockey player turned golf pro, capable of driving the green on a par five but allergic to any semblance of a short game. It's a role catered to his strengths - quick temper tantrums, wacky fight scenes, childish infatuations - and he still plays them well. All the fleeting extraneous bits land, too, from Carl Weathers's absurdly long false hand to Lee Trevino's frequent, often wordless, cameos to Christopher McDonald's delicious overacting as the stuck-up front runner, Shooter McGavin.

It doesn't look great (actually, the budget must've been pretty tight) but that's hardly the point. This one remains a simple dose of energetic fun, twenty-odd years later.

"Happy Gilmore" is the Adam Sandler movie to see. If everyone had to see one Sandler movie before their lives were complete, I would seriously hope this is the movie they see. It's nice to see golf and hockey in a movie again. I don't think there is another movie out there that makes me laugh as much as "Happy Gilmore" does. You have Happy, the ultimate hero, fighting to win a life of security for his grandma. There's Shooter McGavin, the villain you love to hate, who attempts to foil Happy's quest. And then there's Mr. Larson, Happy's 8' tall monster of a former employer, threatening Shooter at every turn. Hey Bob Barker is in this movie! It doesn't get much funnier than Mr. Price Is Right insulting our hero. Well maybe Ben Stiller's part in this movie is funnier, as he corruptly directs a retirement home. It doesn't matter what's the funniest. This whole movie is one hilarious moment after another.

My favorite Adam Sandler movie.

I just think it aligns perfectly with his comic persona. He seems to fit this character perfectly. It's the kind of adolescent silliness that I gravitate toward. I can't tell you how happy I was that my 9 year-old seemed to approve ("That was a very good movie"). And she's way more mature than her old man is.

It's not just the character of Happy Gilmore that's memorable here, but also Shooter McGavin, and Christopher McDonald deserves credit for making the entitled jackass a solid villain. Same for Carl Weathers, and you would think he'd be slumming it here, but he sure doesn't show it.

Best of all? Out-of-Nowhere Bob Barker; secure enough in his celebrity to openly parody it with a free-for-all fistfight.

Tell me "The Price is Wrong, b***h!" isn't one of Sandler's best lines.