Image Courtesy of Amazon.com
Own it on DVD October 10th, 2006
Director :
Frank Coraci
Cast :
Adam Sandler……….Michael Newman
Kate Beckinsale……….Donna Newman
Christopher Walken……….Morty
David Hasselhoff……….Ammer
The Movie
Walking the fine line between being a serious actor and being a comedian is something few people can do successfully. A lifetime of comedy has hurt Bill Murray in the arena of serious acting, as his ability to draw crowds in to his serious acting has been sapped by art-house films demonstrating his ability to act. After a lifetime of making people laugh, being taken seriously is something that is much harder to do at the tail-end of his career. Perhaps it’s better to try and grow an audience as your career progresses, that way the people who wanted to see an actor make them laugh can want to see them tap into other emotions. Adam Sandler seems to be in this school of thought, tapping into multiple emotions with Click.
Click features Sandler as Michael Newman, an architect who neglects his beautiful wife Donna (Kate Beckinsale) and two children to concentrate on his job. Seeking a promotion to partner from his ruthless boss Ammer (David Hasselhoff), Newman keeps falling further behind in the rat race while also disappointing everyone around him on a fairly regular basis; he’s overworked and places his career ahead of everything in his life. Seeking a universal remote control to operate everything in his life, he wanders into a Bed, Bath & Beyond searching for the device when he makes a near-Faustian bargain with a worker at the store (Christopher Walken). His universal remote just doesn’t control his appliances; it controls his world.
As Michael skips many events of his life, the remote learns from his behaviors and adjusts itself to his predilections. Fast forwarding through his life, Michael sees and experiences just exactly how his choices influence the world around him and how getting what he wants in one area won’t cure the ills of another. And for the bulk of the film it’s a great film that teeters close to the edge of cinema classics like It’s A Wonderful Life as the film has a great story to it. Michael is a great everyman, trying to do better for his family and failing to balance those priorities with his wanting of a better life for them. This a great script for the most part, as the film’s plot and story move along briskly enough to keep the story moving but deliberately enough to keep the characters front and center. This is a real family with real problems trying to be solved and as the years move by Michael’s choices with the remote and with his life brings them farther away from the place he wants them to be.
The film’s central theme revolves around Michael losing everything to try and be the type of man he thinks his career should take him to. And in what should’ve been the finale an aged Michael has a crucial moment with his family where he has the revelation about his life comes an ending that takes away from its gravity. Frank Coraci, a veteran of happy endings from being at the helm of two prior Happy Gilmore Productions (The Wedding Singer and The Waterboy), does a great job telling this story. While a different ending is something Coraci seems to be aiming for, the one that is provided wrecks the story arc of a man who gained everything to find he had lost it all in the process. It’s a crucial blunder in a film that manages to avoid many of the usual pratfalls of films starring Adam Sandler.
And for Sandler it’s a bold film and a unique role for him to take as it requires a lot of dramatic ability generally not seen in his film selections. Michael has many of the requisite “angry child in a man’s body” issues that Sandler’s comedy repertoire consists of but it has something else that many of his roles don’t have: heart. Sandler has displayed some great dramatic chops in the past, most notably in Punch-Drunk Love, and in crucial moments where a lot of comedians would fail Sandler succeeds in bringing the sort of gravitas needed. As Sandler’s audience is changing and growing up so is Sandler the actor; this is a film and a role that require more than him to punch out various people and scream. He succeeds admirably as while the film requires many of the usual screaming and physical comedy he’s known for there’s plenty of meat to his role as well.
The Audio
Presented in a Dolby Digital 5.1 format, Click sounds great. It has a well-separated sound that takes full advantage of the format.
The Video
Presented in a widescreen format with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, this a very good transfer.
The Extras
Deleted Scenes are a couple quick scenes removed from the movie. Not terribly good, there’s nothing of real interest or comedy in them.
Seven short FeaturettesMake me old and fat is a look at the film’s makeup and effects shots to age the actors, which is relatively interesting because of the sheer amount of work that went into it. FX of Click is a feature focusing on the sort of blue and green screen work used, as well as some rotoscoping used in certain scenes. Design my universe focuses on the designs of the scenery and setting. Focusing on how they were working in the past, present and future, it’s interesting to see how they designed everything and why. Cars of the future is a brief look at how they designed the vehicles in relation to the time periods they were looking at. Humping Dogs is a feature that looks at how they were able to get the various dogs to “hump” the stuffed duck. Directo’s Take is a short look at Frank Coraci on the set, with commentary from the principle actors. Finally Fine Cookin’ is a compilation of behind the scenes clips of Adam Sandler in the fat suit, riffing on whatever that comes his way.
Cast and Crew Commentary
Previews for The Benchwarmers, 50 First Dates, The Pursuit of Happyness , Casino Royale, Ghost Rider , Stranger than Fiction , The Holiday, Spider-Man 3, Open Season, The Da Vinci Code, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Little Man , RV, The Pink Panther (2006), Fun with Dick and Jane and Seinfeld Season 7
| InsidePulse’s Ratings for Click | |
The Inside Pulse
Grossing over $140 million at the box office just in the United States, Click showed that Sandler can get a little more serious with his material and still pack crowds in to the multiplexes. While this isn’t an Oscar-caliber film or performance by any stretch of the imagination, it’s a good film with a top-notch performance. If the group of people who grew up on Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison continue to keep coming out, perhaps Sandle’s days as king of the lowbrow joke are numbered.
