Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a strange review from MiraJeff. He says GRANDMA'S BOY is actually a good, funny movie. I must admit to having had a guilty laugh or two from the trailer... maybe it won't be so guilty once I see this thing. I love a good vulgar comedy! Here's MiraJeff!
Greetings AICN, MiraJeff here to let the cat out of the bag with a review of the Happy Madison-produced stoner comedy, Grandma’s Boy. It seems that our old buddy Adam Sandler has gone and done it again. Sort of. You see, besides a producing credit, Sandler is surprisingly absent from this movie, which is ultimately a good move because it doesn’t need him. I kept thinking Sandler was going to pop up like the Devil in Dirty Work, but thankfully, this one stays SNL free… except for cameos from Rob Schneider and David Spade, but hey, those guys deserve more work as it is. Even without them though, Grandma’s Boy would still be a raucous, mostly hilarious hard-R comedy that follows Sandler-movie logic to a tee, and I mean that in the best way possible. As Happy Madison takes over the National Lampoon’s throne, Grandma’s Boy can only be viewed as a high note for the company, because it’s funnier than box office hits like The Longest Yard, Anger Management, and 50 First Dates. But allow me to start at the beginning.
My girlfriend got invited to the movie through Screening Exchange, an audience research company here in New York City. She couldn’t go so I got the tickets, and literally couldn’t find one friend at school to go with me when I told them it was a movie starring those guys who are in all of Adam Sandler’s movies. “Oh, so... it doesn’t have Adam Sandler.” “No, I don’t think so.” “Um, yeah I think I have class.” So I trekked my ass to Times Square to stand in line and scratch my head with the other couple hundred people who got the email and had no friggin’ idea what this movie was about. The flyer said not yet rated, but I figured a movie about a guy and his grandma would probably be PG-13 at the worst. Boy was I wrong.
The first sound in the movie is the sweet sound of a bong being ripped. The opening credits are designed like that Galaga arcade game they always had in the local bowling alley next to some X-Men/Captain America game. Three years ago, director Nicholaus Goossen was Allen Covert’s assistant for Christ’s sake. The film is co-written by Nick Swardson and Barry Wernick along with Covert, who for years was always Sandler’s right-hand man onscreen. (Their funniest shit may be when they both guest starred as themselves on Judd Apatow’s TV series, Undeclared.) This time, Covert steps into the role of Alex, a 35-year old video game tester, and adequately fills Sandler’s shoes. Covert has always been a scene stealer, but the sarcastic, nebbish stoner he plays here could be called the best man-child performance since Tom Hanks in Big. This might as well be a teen comedy. Would the story be that difference if Alex was a 17 year-old kid who is a videogame master and thus, one of the dozens of young testers employed by Alex’s company? Probably not, but who cares, because Sandler’s group of buddies and Goossen’s light direction are perfect for the job of bringing these crazy characters to life.
The story follows Alex as he’s evicted from his apartment by kooky landlord Schneider when his roommate (Sandler cronie Jonathan Loughran) blows months of rent money on Filipino hookers. He spends one night with his best friend Jeff (Swardson), who sleeps in a “sweeeet” car bed and still lives with his parents, one of whom walks in on Alex during a, shall we say, embarrassing moment. So he’s left with no choice but to call Grandma (Doris Roberts), and move in with her and her two friends played by Shirley Knight and Shirley Jones. Despite working on a top secret video game of his own, things aren’t going so well at work either, where Alex is the oldest person on staff besides his yoga-loving, free-spirited boss (Kevin Nealon). As a video game tester, it’s probably safe to say that Alex doesn’t do that well with the ladies, which is why he hardly knows what to do when Samantha (the lovely Linda Cardellini) comes into the office to oversee the development of a new video game.
Grandma’s Boy is driven by strong comedic performances from its supporting cast. Swardson is hilarious as Covert’s horny best friend with a knack for granny loving, while Peter Dante scores big laughs as Alex’s always tan, always stoned drug dealer with a love for exotic pets. As the film’s chief antagonist, evil computer genius J.P, Joel Moore is hysterical, acting like a cross between that suckass Kurt from Real Genius, and the biggest Matrix fan you’ve ever met. J.P is an annoying character that could’ve become a really bad idea, but Moore (Dodgeball) plays it to perfection and somehow pulls it off. It’s sad, but you can’t help but laugh at his bizarre, antisocial behavior. And Jonah Hill also scores laughs as one of Alex’s co-workers. You might recognize him as the fat kid in 40 Year-Old Virgin who wanted to buy the glittery ice skates from Catherine Keener’s Ebay store. A party scene that has him sucking a perfect-looking breast for 8 hours is especially priceless. Cardellini, who was so good on Freaks and Geeks and lately, Brokeback Mountain, shows another side of herself here with a performance that allows her to really let loose. When she gets hammered and starts doing karaoke at that crazy party, she charms the pants off you, or at least make them feel a bit tighter. Roberts does the same over-friendly grandma routine that won her Emmys on Everybody Loves Raymond, though she does manage to pull off far-fetched scenes like the one in which she and her elderly roommates mistake marijuana for tea leaves, which leads to mostly funny results.
In the end, the picture belongs to Covert, who makes the most of his leading role with his sharp wit and strong sense of comic timing. Grandma’s Boy knows and its strengths and weaknesses and in spite of some plot contrivances and a few stale gags, succeeds as a funny movie because it knows its audience. The film relishes in its own drug references, and achieves the same sense of “high” comedy that worked so well in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle.
While the film probably won’t enjoy the same financial success that Sandler’s films too, it should be a movie that recoups its budget and makes Happy Madison proud, especially during January, the dumping ground month when we’ll probably go to the movies to see King Kong again. Grandma’s Boy is a raunchy comedy that people who liked Wedding Crashers and 40 Year-Old Virgin will enjoy. Hats off to Covert, an underrated actor who should’ve gotten his own TV series by now. Covert returns to the big screen next year in Sandler’s “Click,” while Happy Madison has Benchwarmers in the can. And any baseball movie that stars Napoleon Dynamite alongside Schneider and Spade has to be good, right? That’s all for now folks, see you same time, next week, and all you New Yorkers, go see Cardellini in Brokeback Mountain. Now, dammit, now!
