Les 8 Folles Nuits d'Adam Sandler

"Eight Crazy Nights", or "Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights", a crude animated film, shows comedian Adam Sandler in cartoon form. I'm no die-hard fan of his, but I think he can be funny, so I recently decided to check out this film, despite a lot of negative reviews. Well, guess what? Now I agree with those negative reviews. I'm sure this film had potential to be a decent comedy (like some of Sandler's live action films), and a good, touching holiday adventure as well, but it didn't really turn out to be either of these things, unfortunately.

Davey Stone lives in the town of Dukesberry, New England. He is now in his early thirties, and is a nasty alcoholic with a bad reputation. Twenty years ago, he was basically the opposite, but something went horribly wrong! Now that he's so uncouth, he is known to cause trouble, and one December night, the first night of Hanukkah, he is arrested for leaving a restaurant without paying. He is sentenced to community service as an assistant referee for a youth basketball league, working for the head referee, Whitey Duvall. Since that was not Davey's first offence, he will be sentenced to ten years in prison if he breaks the law again! As the days of Hanukkah go by, and Christmas draws near, the good-natured Whitey tries to change Davey's ways, but is there any hope?!

Adam Sandler provides the voice for Davey, who looks just like him, as well as the voices for Whitey and his sister, Eleanore. Personally, I found Whitey's voice maybe not quite irritating, but close, and I think I found Eleanore's voice fairly irritating. Those voices, however, certainly didn't ruin the entire experience for me. The main problem with "Eight Crazy Nights" is that as a comedy, it's pretty lame. I do not recall ever laughing, and recall smiling only a couple times, one of them being when Davey tells his car not to stay up too late. Whitey having seizures - not funny! Whitey covered in fecal matter - not funny! Reindeer licking ice and feces off of him - not funny! People laughing so hard that they shoot out snot while reindeer outside laugh so hard at the same joke that they shoot out feces - not funny! Some of these gags put a puzzled look on my face, or grossed me out a bit! The film is somewhat touching at times, especially around the end, and if it weren't for that, I think I would give it a lower rating than the already low 4.

I have no problem with the premise or animation here. Like I said, the main problem with this film is the lame humour. I'm certainly NOT irked by all crude, tasteless humour. Since this is a case where that kind of humour is used in animation, I feel I should mention that "South Park" has made me laugh hard numerous times! However, when crude humour is not funny, it can be frighteningly bad (like when those hacks, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer do it), and that is sometimes the case in "Eight Crazy Nights", or if not, it sometimes comes very close! Knowing that Jon Lovitz had a voice-over role in this film, I am reminded of Jay Sherman, his character in the short-lived cartoon series, "The Critic" (a good show, in my opinion), and the character's catchphrase, "It stinks." I really think that catchphrase, though simple, is a good one to use to describe this movie. Without a doubt, "Eight Crazy Nights" marked a low point in Sandler's career.

Adam Sandler's first (and to date, only) animated feature, "Eight Crazy Nights," takes a cue from his infamous "Chanukah Song" in celebrating the Jewish holiday -- as well as good old commercial Christmas -- musical style. With all the typical Sandler comedic hallmarks, it's certainly not a children's feature, but is admittedly a lot softer and more toned down than, say, "Happy Gilmore" or "Billy Madison."

The story revolves around the self-loathing loser, Davey, who is essentially a by-the-books "Happy Madison" character. Since his better days have passed him by, he spends most of his time being drunk and unhappy while simultaneously making everyone around him miserable. Because justice apparently takes a holiday, he is let off the hook for a drunken misdemeanor in turn for some community service. Davey must coach a youth league basketball team with the help of a bizarre little old man by the name of Whitey who has a disturbingly hairy body and who still lives with his sister. Slowly, Davey starts to redeem himself and even takes a stab at winning back the girl who got away from him.

Aside from being typical Adam Sandler fare, "Eight Crazy Nights" is rather vibrant in both its animation style and its musical numbers. It's simply a predictable, yet feel-good story that no doubt has worked its way into becoming somewhat of a holiday classic. Adam Sandler provides the voices of all three main characters, while the usual gaggle of co-horts in Jon Lovitz, Kevin Nealon, Rob Schneider and Allen Covert show up, too.

Funny as all heck. Decent story music was alright. Animation holds up for its age. Added to my families Christmas movie rotation.

Adam Sandler shows a great range and his characters. The story is fairly compelling. Whitey makes the story without him. The story goes nowhere.

It is a touching Christmas story. It really is about Whitey and how he impacts the people and his hometown.

The way whitey believes in his town the people in it. It's when Adam Sandler's character stands up for Whitey that you really see the true story of Christmas. Come alive in this.

The story brings the story of Hanukkah and redemption with through Christmas into a new light.

Ok, there were very few slightly funny parts of the movie, but for the most part all the laughs are in the commercial. I think Adam Sandler is a comedic genius, but his work fails in this movie. His character is practically the same as in his past movies, except only animated. The thing that I did enjoy about this movie that made me give it a 5 rather then something lower was the music. I actually thought the music was pretty cool and fun. For the most part, if you want to see a true Sandler masterpiece, I don't recommend this film.

Boy, am I glad that I didn't watch Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights during the holiday season. I would've been more morose than when I watched Bad Santa two weeks before Christmas last year. But after viewing that I was morose in the kind of way that is a tad more welcoming than hurting. If I had seen this film weeks leading up to Christmas, I'd feel slightly contemptible and sad inside.

This is a cynical, depraved film that, even worse, has no reason to be so cynical and depraved. It's expected of Sandler to include scatological humor and slight-offensiveness in his films, sure, but it's unexpected of him to include such derogatory representations of his own culture and unnecessary rudeness in the time of the holidays. I can only imagine the stunned reactions of parents that were lured into this with the appeal of Christmas images and holiday sweetness on TV only to be met with one smarmy, laugh-free punch after another. It's so rare we get a film that deals with a holiday aside from Christmas during the December month; did the one Hanukkah film we get have to be directed by Adam Sandler? He voices several characters in the film, one of them Davey, who he also resembles, a Jewish man in his mid-thirties, deeply loathing of the holidays and all the cheer they bring to people. After being convicted of public drunkenness in yet another offense, just when he's about to go away to prison, Whitey Duvall (voiced by Sandler, as well), the local youth basketball coach, offers him a job as a referee down at the gym to which he accepts. Whitey is a short, kind old man, who lives with his wife Eleanor (also voiced by Sandler), and whole-heartedly believes that Davey could do right if he put his mind to it. The problem is Davey doesn't have any ambition to do right and consistently puts everyone around him down because he himself can't be happy with the cards he has been dealt.

There's only so many times I can watch a man belittle and harass a sweet older man until it becomes nearly unwatchable. The constant abuse Davey brings to Whitey's life is mean-spirited just for the sake of being mean-spirited and rarely results in a laugh or a smile. Davey's attitude, alone, never sparks any particular laugh either. There's a big difference between someone who adopts a sour attitude because of past life experiences that have scarred him and a person who adopts one purely out of choice. Davey has one event in his life that happened at a young age that was supposed to spawn this cynicism and disgust for human happiness and holiday cheer. That was years ago and you think the anger and hostile would've worn off with the passage of almost two decades. Not a chance. He remains as mean and as nasty as if the event occurred yesterday.

The film is also a musical, which isn't as awful as that sounds. Some songs, particularly "Davey's Song," are kind of infectious in their contempt for the holidays. "Technical Foul," the song Whitey sings when he's introducing Davey to all the rules of his own, is a cute little anthem as well. However, none of which allow Eight Crazy Nights to surpass its codger attitude to everything it sets up. But it feels even more insincere when the film abandons its mean-spiritedness for the fluffy, Hallmark-card cuteness that it feels obligated to tack on in the last act of the film to show Davey really has come a long way as a human. I would've had more respect for the film had it stayed true to its inherently grumpy roots.

Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights is an unhealthy film for the holidays. A cheap, trite ordeal, at only seventy-six minutes, it's an obnoxious pictures that gives a new meaning to the word "humbug." It's a blatant ripoff of A Christmas Carol, and tries to justify its mean-spirited qualities as the formula for a "reformation," change-of-mind story that we've seen time and time again in better, more tolerable films.

Voiced by: Adam Sandler, Jackie Titone, Austin Stout, and Rob Schneider. Directed by: Seth Kearsley.