D | An outlaw who was raised by Native Americans discovers that he has five half-brothers; together the men go on a mission to find their wayward, deadbeat dad. Directed by Frank Coraci Initial Review by Sean Riley |
It’s a shame Ridiculous 6 is being wasted as a full MMC pick. We owed it to ourselves to watch this movie via synchronized Netflix’s some late Friday night with a 1000 comment live thread. The last time we did that I dropped my remote in my scotch. Unfortunately we decided to watch when prose was called for.
With all the hullabaloo behind the filming of Ridiculous 6, it was surprisingly less offensive than your average Sandler film. Sandler’s wheelhouse has become the lowest common denominator of comedy. By lowest common denominator, I don’t refer to dick and fart jokes; I refer to lazy dick and fart jokes and playing the moron for amusement. His movies always feature characters with apparent IQs in the neighborhood of borderline retarded and usually place them at the butt of much of the “funny” Typically this part is played by Rob Schneider or sometimes Sandler himself. Ridiculous 6 features half of the members of the titular 6 as well the entire left-eye gang and a handful of others right in Sandler’s IQ sweet spot. I suppose when you’ve made your fortune pandering to an audience just a shade north of that line you don’t need to change things or try anything new. Perhaps the fact that Ridiculous 6 was ultimately relegated to Netflix instead of the traditional theatrical distribution will inspire at least an attempt from Sandler’s next effort.
I suppose to break down the movie I’ll do so by breaking down the 6 individually.
Adam Sandler is Tommy, leader of the 6. A white guy raised by the Noble Apache who is basically a superhero with his “mystical shit” and knife skills. Of all the 6 he’s the most boring. He wasn’t too bright with his judge of character of his dad even knowing he was a career criminal. It also isn’t very noble of him to essentially recruit a handful of seemingly law abiding citizens to joining his criminal enterprises. Tommy is pretty meh.
Rob Schneider plays Ramon, a Mexican. Since blackface is accepted as wrong when will they stop spray tanning Jewish guys and making them Mexican? Ok he’s a quarter Filipino but that’s not the same thing. Anyway, I suppose had he asked Diego Luna to play a moron with an unhealthy relationship to his burro Diego probably suggested Rob Schneider for the role. Speaking of the burro- the shit gag was only funny when the guy made the burro wood carving that also shat. In a spectacular upset, Schneider is not the worst supporting actor in this movie. Perhaps his experience playing nearly the same role in almost every Adam Sandler movie and his own starring vehicles gives him the edge. His twitchy face during the classic western standoff stood out as being the best of the bunch.
Taylor Lautner plays Lil Pete the half-wit. Yep, they call him half-wit in this movie and Lautner played him a quarter wit. Lil Pete is said to have a strong neck, good thing you let us know when you introduced him that we’d get one of those hilarious hanging gags later on and boy did they payoff. Also, when papa Nick Nolte tells Lil Pete the mom just poops out the babies, that was what they call in the comedy world a call-back. They also call it a joke that didn’t land. Lautner wins Worst Supporting Actor in my book.
Jorge Garcia plays Herm who seems to be an unintelligible mountain man??? Later we found out his mom just drank a ton of moonshine while pregnant. I guess maybe the cast parties were fun because I can’t imagine someone actually wanting to play that part. The only thing that kept him from Worst Supporting Actor was a sublime performance by Lautner and his headless Harvey Keitel impersonation.
Luke Wilson is very Luke Wilsony as Danny, the disgraced Abraham Lincoln Secret Service guard. I like Luke Wilson being Luke Wilson so that’s good for me but I know not everyone likes that. The flashback of his leaving Lincoln behind to take a shit while checking with Abe and Nancy to see if they needed anything from concessions was one of the highlights of the movie. His guilt being cured from Nolte’s “shit happens” line is one of many examples of the laziness of the script. Much better after he steps in front of a bullet and sees Tommy as Lincoln for his redemption.
Terry Crews is Chico. Terry Crews can do no wrong. He’s a beautiful human being. The moment he confesses to his brothers to being half-black is mildly amusing even if a similar reveal hadn’t been done a number of times in better movies. His sincerity is what pulls it off.
So clearly 2/6 of the crew doesn’t suck. And since Braden is reducing fractions this week let’s call it 1/3 redeemable. If you want to say Tommy and Ramon combine for .75 redeeming we’re now at 2.75/6 which is still below 50% and it’s F territory by those numbers.
Good thing we have John Turturro as Abner Doubleday with his on the fly invention of baseball, er Sticky McShmickens. That was good stuff. Turturro delivered as the man-servant with a foot fetish in Mr. Deeds, he was a fun terrorist in Zohan and he provided the best scene in Ridiculous 6. Keep hiring that man Adam Sandler.
On the same token, the left eye gang was legit fun. Steve Zahn has always been good at the crazy weirdo, Bill Hader can do anything, and Nick Swardson was born to play morons in Adam Sandler movies. LaVell Griffin didn’t get much to work with but his delivery was on par with the rest of his gang. The weak link was Adams real life nephew Jared Sandler whose imdb page consists only of Uncle Adam movies. No coincidence.
Now for the bad side characters… the whole poker scene should’ve been ditched. This movie was way longer than it needed to be and they could’ve just gotten away with making enough cash in a 10 second montage without having the scene. Although, then David Spade would be out of work. I’m thinking Blake Shelton got the Wyatt Earp gig because Kevin James was off filming more Paul Blart movies.
Danny Trejo does Danny Trejo things, Wears no Bra and Smokin Fox are lazy indian names that offer no comedy or substance. Steve Buscemi and Harvey Keitel are both mostly wasted and could’ve been played by anyone. It’s almost insulting that Sandler parades so many stars in cameo roles not worthy of their talents.
Ultimately, the greatest failing of Ridiculous 6 is its inability to commit. Was Sandler and co. affected by the bad publicity and decided to tone some of the more offensive bits down or were they simply lazy writers and forgot to pepper in jokes? If he wanted to create a modern Blazing Saddles he needed to go all out. Perhaps the sophomoric charm that America fell in love with loses its appeal as Sandler nears 50. Side characters save the day but can only elevate this to a D.
Initial review by Sean.
I suppose to break down the movie I’ll do so by breaking down the 6 individually.
Adam Sandler is Tommy, leader of the 6. A white guy raised by the Noble Apache who is basically a superhero with his “mystical shit” and knife skills. Of all the 6 he’s the most boring. He wasn’t too bright with his judge of character of his dad even knowing he was a career criminal. It also isn’t very noble of him to essentially recruit a handful of seemingly law abiding citizens to joining his criminal enterprises. Tommy is pretty meh.
Rob Schneider plays Ramon, a Mexican. Since blackface is accepted as wrong when will they stop spray tanning Jewish guys and making them Mexican? Ok he’s a quarter Filipino but that’s not the same thing. Anyway, I suppose had he asked Diego Luna to play a moron with an unhealthy relationship to his burro Diego probably suggested Rob Schneider for the role. Speaking of the burro- the shit gag was only funny when the guy made the burro wood carving that also shat. In a spectacular upset, Schneider is not the worst supporting actor in this movie. Perhaps his experience playing nearly the same role in almost every Adam Sandler movie and his own starring vehicles gives him the edge. His twitchy face during the classic western standoff stood out as being the best of the bunch.
Taylor Lautner plays Lil Pete the half-wit. Yep, they call him half-wit in this movie and Lautner played him a quarter wit. Lil Pete is said to have a strong neck, good thing you let us know when you introduced him that we’d get one of those hilarious hanging gags later on and boy did they payoff. Also, when papa Nick Nolte tells Lil Pete the mom just poops out the babies, that was what they call in the comedy world a call-back. They also call it a joke that didn’t land. Lautner wins Worst Supporting Actor in my book.
Jorge Garcia plays Herm who seems to be an unintelligible mountain man??? Later we found out his mom just drank a ton of moonshine while pregnant. I guess maybe the cast parties were fun because I can’t imagine someone actually wanting to play that part. The only thing that kept him from Worst Supporting Actor was a sublime performance by Lautner and his headless Harvey Keitel impersonation.
Luke Wilson is very Luke Wilsony as Danny, the disgraced Abraham Lincoln Secret Service guard. I like Luke Wilson being Luke Wilson so that’s good for me but I know not everyone likes that. The flashback of his leaving Lincoln behind to take a shit while checking with Abe and Nancy to see if they needed anything from concessions was one of the highlights of the movie. His guilt being cured from Nolte’s “shit happens” line is one of many examples of the laziness of the script. Much better after he steps in front of a bullet and sees Tommy as Lincoln for his redemption.
Terry Crews is Chico. Terry Crews can do no wrong. He’s a beautiful human being. The moment he confesses to his brothers to being half-black is mildly amusing even if a similar reveal hadn’t been done a number of times in better movies. His sincerity is what pulls it off.
So clearly 2/6 of the crew doesn’t suck. And since Braden is reducing fractions this week let’s call it 1/3 redeemable. If you want to say Tommy and Ramon combine for .75 redeeming we’re now at 2.75/6 which is still below 50% and it’s F territory by those numbers.
Good thing we have John Turturro as Abner Doubleday with his on the fly invention of baseball, er Sticky McShmickens. That was good stuff. Turturro delivered as the man-servant with a foot fetish in Mr. Deeds, he was a fun terrorist in Zohan and he provided the best scene in Ridiculous 6. Keep hiring that man Adam Sandler.
On the same token, the left eye gang was legit fun. Steve Zahn has always been good at the crazy weirdo, Bill Hader can do anything, and Nick Swardson was born to play morons in Adam Sandler movies. LaVell Griffin didn’t get much to work with but his delivery was on par with the rest of his gang. The weak link was Adams real life nephew Jared Sandler whose imdb page consists only of Uncle Adam movies. No coincidence.
Now for the bad side characters… the whole poker scene should’ve been ditched. This movie was way longer than it needed to be and they could’ve just gotten away with making enough cash in a 10 second montage without having the scene. Although, then David Spade would be out of work. I’m thinking Blake Shelton got the Wyatt Earp gig because Kevin James was off filming more Paul Blart movies.
Danny Trejo does Danny Trejo things, Wears no Bra and Smokin Fox are lazy indian names that offer no comedy or substance. Steve Buscemi and Harvey Keitel are both mostly wasted and could’ve been played by anyone. It’s almost insulting that Sandler parades so many stars in cameo roles not worthy of their talents.
Ultimately, the greatest failing of Ridiculous 6 is its inability to commit. Was Sandler and co. affected by the bad publicity and decided to tone some of the more offensive bits down or were they simply lazy writers and forgot to pepper in jokes? If he wanted to create a modern Blazing Saddles he needed to go all out. Perhaps the sophomoric charm that America fell in love with loses its appeal as Sandler nears 50. Side characters save the day but can only elevate this to a D.
Initial review by Sean.
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