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Mr. Deeds (Special Widescreen Edition)

Mr. Deeds (Special Widescreen Edition)

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Career nadir for its leads
Review: In this embarressing modern update of the 1936 classic MR DEEDS GOES TO TOWN, Adam Sandler plays small town pizzeria owner Longfellow Deeds, the recipent of a $40 billion inheritance from his uncle. Naturally this newfound good fortune leads to a media blitz, and reporter Babe Bennett, a.k.a. Pam Dawson (Winona Ryder) goes undercover to try and uncover some "Dirty Deeds" to print in her sleazy tabloid.
MR. DEEDS is stupid and juvenile even by Sandler standards.Example: Deeds's left foot has turned black with frostbite and as a result he has no feeling in it so he encourages his butler to whack him with a fire poker. This is just as inept and unfunny as FREDDY GOT FINGERED's "paraplegic whipping" scene.
Other low points include Sandler and Co's awful rendition of Bowie's "Space Oddity" and the dreadful poem Sandler recites at his uncle's funeral. (His real dream in life is to write greeting cards). On the other hand Winona Ryder is horrible in this. She looks attractive, but that's all. There are also cameos by Rob Schneider, John McEnroe (who is an AWFUL actor) and Steve Buscemi as "Crazy Eyes", a bug-eyed lunatic who likes pizzas with bizzare toppings. (Don't the writers realize the Ninja Turtles craze ended over 11 years ago?). Even by Sandler's standards MR. DEEDS reaches a new low. It makes HAPPY GILMORE look like DUCK SOUP. This provides the hard evidence that the promise Sandler showed in THE WEDDING SINGER was just a flash in the pan. But the movie had the potential to be even worse: Pauly Shore could have been the lead.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Tough To Recommend, but has some good laughs
Review: Adam Sandler movies pretty much shoot for the lowest common denominator. Whether it's jokes about body functions or relationships or people, somehow Adam seems to find some way to make fun of it or to insult someone. In the case of this movie, Adam seems to insult just about everyone, including himself. While the humor is frequently very base, it does occasionally rise to a level to give you a good laugh.

The story is pretty simple. Rich guy dies, leaving "poor" hick relative billions of dollars. The poor defenseless rube moves to the big city and is taken advantage of by all the immoral people there. The hick doesn't really care for money, and returns to his small town values where the buffalo roam and nary a cloud is seen except in blizzards and tornados.

So where's the twist? There aren't any. If you are watching this movie to see some grand new interpretation of "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town", then don't bother. This movie is another Adam Sandler movie, with the only variation being location, but! The biggest "but" is that Sandler generally avoids the most base and gross jokes in this movie. I can't remember once when Sandler used a four-letter word. The humor here is all slapstick, but doesn't (finally!) rely on four-letter words to be funny.

There are scenes in this movie that shouldn't be funny, but are. When Sandler opens the coffin at the funeral and the still-frozen body pops out, I was rolling on the floor. It was stupid, but it was funny. The foot fetish jokes were lost on me. A couple of times I found them funny, but the rest of the time I thought they were tedious.

I admit that I was glad I watched the movie. I might even watch it again. However, the movie comes across as more of a series of adlibbed scenes rather than a well-plotted movie. It seemed that there were only a couple of actors that took this movie very seriously, and their seriousness felt awkward compared to the clowning around. Winona Ryder was one actor who took her role seriously, and in scenes with Sandler and Ryder, they just struggled to achieve any chemistry.

While the movie is sufficiently light that it made a good one-time watch for me, I struggle to provide too much of a recommendation. I think some Sandler fans will find it less inspired that some of his former movies. Anyone that tries to compare it to "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" will be thoroughly disappointed. I give this one three stars for the laughs I got, but keep your expectations low when you watch this one.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: SANDLER'S COMIC MASTERPIECE!
Review: This just proves that Adam Samdler CAN be funny without being VULGAR. "Mr. Deeds" is, without a doubt, Sandler's finest film. Hilarious and touching, it mixes comedy and romance with great success. All of Sandler's fans should enjoy this. The DVD is also a hoot. The best feature is Deed's greeting cards. They're on-the-floor funny. Own it today! Movie/DVD Grade: A+

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: I blame the director and writer not Sandler for this one
Review: When I heard that Adam Sandler was starring in a remake of the Frank Capra classic "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" I pretty much hit the roof. Watching the trailer did nothing to improve my mood, but having now seen the film I have to observe that the trailer goes out of its way to appeal to the image of Sandler in "Happy Gilmore" and "The Waterboy" rather than in "The Wedding Singer" and "Big Daddy." This matters because I like those latter films and the type of character Sandler plays a lot more than what he does in the other categories.

Now, the irony is that all of those films were written by Tim Herilhy, Adam Sandler's college roommate, who did the screenplay for "Mr. Deeds," which was based on the script Robert Riskin wrote for the Frank Capra film, which was based on the short story "Opera Hat" by Clarence Budington Kelland. Now that I have seen the film my problem is not with Sandler's performance, but rather with Herilhy's script. The idea of course is that Deeds is to good for the big bad city, but Herilhy fails to show a firm grasp on exactly why that is the case. Gary Cooper's Longfellow Deeds was a hick from Mandrake Falls (in Vermont) but still savvy enough to know what is right. Adam Sandler's version comes from Mandrake Falls (in New Hampshire) and is a good-hearted goof, but in the final analysis that is not enough to save the day and I can argue that the biggest difference between the two versions is that in this won the title character is not the ultimate hero of the film. It is easy to go through and talk about the similarities and differences between the two films, but it would be more profitable just to talk about what Herilhy decided to keep and how there is no consistent logic behind the decisions.

The entire film is a series of hits and misses in terms of the comedy and the performances. I thought Winona Ryder's performance had some good moments once she figured out her Babe Bennett character was in love with Deeds, while John Turturro's Spanish butler Emilio is fairly engaging (except for the stupid foot fetish joke--a last second addition to the screenplay that Herilhy and director Steven Brill laud on the commentary track, which pretty much proves they are clueless on what works and does not work in this film). I like Erick Avari as Cecil Anderson mainly because I like bald-headed bearded guys in big movies and he does the high vocal bridge on "Space Oddity." But Peter Gallagher plays a cartoon villain as Chuck Cedar and where is the scene where Mac McGrath (Jared Harris) gets his comeuppance? (assuming, of course, that the idea here was to flip the role of his counter part in the original). Meanwhile, Conchata Ferrell, another long-time favorite has too many wasted moments as Jan and Steve Buscemi's cameo as Crazy Eyes absolutely proves these guys are just clowning around.

Besides wanting to go back and watch the Capra original after watching "Mr. Deeds," I really hope that Sandler noticed his bank account is healthy and that the revelation of his performance in "Punch-Drunk Love" was a sign to stop hanging around with the old gang so much in the future. Sandler could have scored big in "Mr. Deeds," but not with this team.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Phony and cheesy
Review: I was honestly confused during this movie. A typical Adam Sandler movie is filled with gross humor, and not so nice people. This movie was totally the opposite, but it wasn't good. The actors were fake, predictable, and the plot was very weak. I'm not sure if Adam meant to play his character in a phony, cheesy way, or if he didn't know how to play a nice, regular person. I think that he should stick to his normal roles. I wouldn't suggest you see this movie because it's not very good quality, and you'll want to turn on another movie right after, due to the lack of entertainment.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not His Best
Review: This movie is one of Adam Sandler's worst movies. The warmheartedness that is usually present in his other offerings is completely missing in this outing. This is probably due to the fact that there is absolutely no chemistry between Sandler and Winona Ryder. Winona just doesn't come off as being interested in Sandler. Without the romance which is the key to his movies, this one falls completely flat. All of the characters seem to be reading their lines off of cue cards. Ther performances are really that stiff. The only thing that saves this one from going into the garbage can is one very hilarious scene in which Sandler rescues some cats from a burning apartment building, but one scene can't save a movie.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good Adam Sandler, but the ending tanked
Review: If you like Adam Sandler, and have grown up a little since Billy Madison, this was a good movie. But the ending fell short. Like a lot of movies, you reached a point where you had to say, "Yea, right..." and let it go. But even with a weak ending, it was still good. Predictable, but good. Five years from now, no one will remember this movie, but it's worth a watch.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The best Adam Sandler movie I've seen!
Review: My husband and I were chuckling through the entire movie. Adam Sandler was truly funny (rather than just acting stupid) in this movie. Great screen writing. Highly recommend. Too bad there were a few mild curse words or else I would have let my 6 year old watch.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Comedic Genius
Review: This movie is vintage Sandler. If you want to see John McEnroe jump 20 feet in the air, a flaming cat fall into a sewer, a kid getting his tooth knocked out, or some guy proclaim that his childhood ambition was to be "International House Pancake," watch this movie!!! You don't have to admit you enjoyed it, but I promise you'll have a great time!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: BEST MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN
Review: Sandler really regains from what I think was a flop of Little Nicky. Turturro, Emilio, is great.Other cast members such as Gallager, and Wrider are good too.But, my all time favorite was Buscemi. I love pretty much any movie with him in it.If you like this movie you'll probably like O Brother, Were Art Thou?.
This movie was better than the original, personally, I didn't really like it. If you liked this you might not like the original, or vise versa.


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