InsidePulse DVD Review – Grandma's Boy: Unrated Edition

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Image Courtesy of Amazon.com

Director :

Nicholaus Goossen

Cast :

Linda Cardellini……….Samantha
Chuck Church……….Dan
Frank Coraci……….Cousin Steven
Allen Covert……….Alex
Peter Dante……….Dante
Heidi Hawking……….Barry’s love interest
Jonah Hill……….Barry
Shane Houston……….Video Gamer
Shirley Jones……….Grace
Shirley Knight……….Bea
Joe Koons……….Best Man
Jonathan Loughran……….Josh
Katherine Ann McGregor……….Mrs. K
Joel Moore……….J.P.
Kevin Nealon……….Simon Cheezle

The Movie

It has been said that being Adam Sandler’s friend will get you movie roles and bit parts in films for as long as one wants them. And using this sort of career path, it’s easy to carve out a comfortable living as Sandler is one of the biggest stars in Hollywood and arguably its most successful comedian of the last 15 years. And in the hierarchy of being Sandler’s friend, Rob Schneider and David Spade seem to be poised to get the prime roles and their own films as they are the most talented of his crew. But in their movies, as well as Sandler’s, a group of guys always seem to have supporting roles.

Nick Swardson, Peter Dante, Jonathan Loughran and Allen Covert have been in The Wedding Singer, Big Daddy and The Benchwarmers between them. While none are extremely or excessively talented, they are good support actors who gotten plenty of laughs in small doses. And on the first weekend of 2006, they got their crack at the big time with Grandma’s Boy, a starring vehicle for them all.

Covert stars as Alex, a 36 year old video game tester who loses his apartment when his roommate uses Alex’s share of the rent on Asian hookers and is forced to move out. Forced into living with his grandmother Lilly (Doris Roberts) and her two roommates Bea (Shirley Knight) and Grace (Shirley Jones), Alex has to adapt to living with the three women while finishing up work on a new game from the genius of J.P (Joel Moore) while enduring Bea’s insanity, Grace’s homophobic putdowns and a potential new love interest in Samantha (Linda Cardellini). Samantha was brought in by Mr. Cheezle (Kevin Nealon), Alex’s boss, for quality control. What follows is a movie that is aimed at, and apparently written by, a thirteen year old.

Grandma’s Boy was produced by Sandler’s Happy Madison production company and aimed at the same core audience Sandler used to target back in the late 1990s. While Sandler’s taste in movies and comedy has matured in the decade or so that he’s been reigning at the box office, Grandma’s Boy is a throwback to an era where jokes about flatulence, drug use, and vague sex references were the cutting edge of comedy. The jokes are forced for the most part and are not funny in most regards. If this is a film comprised of Sandler’s friends, it’s almost appropriate that the director would be one too.

Nicholaus Goossen, whose previous work was a short dedicated to Sandler’s dog, mans the helm in his first real directorial debut and seems to have no idea what he’s doing. There’s a semblance of a story being told about a man adjusting to life back with his grandmother while in a rather unique career. However, there are so many gags that are inserted to try and make the thirteen year old inside all of us laugh that the film falls off the track and crashes miserably. There is a story to be told but Goossen’s lack of directing anything of note hurts him a lot. He shows flashes of being a good storyteller and seems to try and make this movie into something that the downtrodden can embrace.

The characters in this universe are not embraceable or even ones we can like or emulate with; they are there to be laughed at, not with. In the film’s final climactic moments, there isn’t a sense of victory or rejoice. It’s another scene with a group of characters that aren’t developed enough to be called one dimensional.

This isn’t a funny movie in any respect. It’s not even a good one, but it goes to show that the old maxim “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is still relevant and applicable.

Score : 2 / 10

The Video

Presented in a widescreen format with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, the film’s transfer looks better than it did in the theater. This isn’t a visually stunning film but the colors are much sharper on DVD.

The Audio

Presented in a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, Grandma’s Boy sounds quite good. The sound is separated well and takes full advantage of the capabilities.

The Extras

Covert whacks it is a behind the scenes feature that focuses on the masturbation sequence early on. With commentary by Swardson, Dante and Covert about both Covert’s masturbatory habits as well as some random commentary about the sequence itself. It’s rather interesting, in a sad sort of way, to hear a number of grown men talk about doing that as well as the sort of implied romantic implications with the doll they suggest and runs a little over four minutes.

Monkey focuses on Swardson, Dante, Goossen and Covert talking about working the monkey in the film. Named Harry, this roughly six minute feature focuses on the chimpanzee’s role in the film as well as the chimpanzee’s obsession with Dante. Adam Sandler, the film’s executive producer, steps in to talk about the sort of comic implications they used the monkey for as well Covert, et al, talk about how they thought it was a great gag to use the chimp in the movie.

Scenes that went up in smoke runs roughly seven minutes and is a compilation of outtakes, alternate line readings and deleted scenes from the film. Set to a techno-beat, it’s not really funny or amusing.

Deleted Scenes are included for the film as well, as the triumphant lack of comedy in the film is celebrated with some more of the material that wasn’t good enough for the film. Ten in all, they are interesting and actually there’s a couple of good scenes that were much funnier than a large chunk of the material included in the film. The film’s original ending is included as well, which is interesting and accomplishes the same things as the movie’s theatrical ending.

Unsmoked Material is another four minute compilation of out takes and flubbed lines.

Smoke This is a compilation of outtakes revolving around all the marijuana-related humor of the film. Running around two minutes, once again it isn’t very funny but at least it’s brief.

Fox Movie Channel Presents “Casting Session” runs nearly eight minutes and is your basic EPK type of information. It has a brief focus on how they were able to get the three elderly women in the film, as no one could’ve guessed that Doris Roberts and Shirley Jones would accept roles in the film. They also talk about how they wrote Kevin Nealon, David Spade and Rob Schneider all into the film in supporting roles, but the focus is mainly on the three senior citizens and their parts.

Music Video: “Another Day” by The Twenty Twos is perhaps the best of the extras, as the song is not the best but it’s catchy and given the lack of quality in the extras it’s good by default. It also has its own Making Of featurette included.

Feature Commentary by Allen Covert, Nick Swardson and Peter Dante

Feature Commentary by Nick Goossen

Theatrical Trailer

Score : 5 / 10