In the early 2000’s, Adam Sandler was king. After a stint on Saturday Night Live, he came out with a string of commercially successful, if critical divisive films that audiences flocked to. Now though, he’s had more hits than misses, and after his contract with Netflix gave him arguably his worst film ever (“The Ridiculous Six”), could, what appears to be, a more serious film give Sandler the push he needs to be a big name in comedy once again?
Sandy Wexler, played by Adam Sandler (“Happy Gilmore,” “Hotel Transylvania”), is a 90’s talent manager for anyone he can get his hands on in Hollywood. Puppeteers, musicians, comedians, Sandy will back anyone. Soon, he finds a singer in a theme park, Courtney Clark, played by Jennifer Hudson (“Dreamgirls,” “The Secret Life of Bees”), that he thinks could be the next big thing, and he uses his limited skills and contacts to try and make her a star.
Of the few things this movie does right, Sandy and Courtney are the biggest successes. Sandler seems like he’s actually trying for once. He doesn’t succeed all the time, but he manages to imbue Wexler with a good guy attitude that is genuinely charming.
It’s a break from the past shtick of playing rich jerk guys because, while Sandy may lie to his clients, you can see that he genuinely cares and is trying. Hudson provides her gorgeous voice, but also a smile and an upbeat attitude that helps to balance out the generally low quality of the jokes.
At two hours and eleven minutes, “Sandy Wexler” drags like a corpse. Easily forty minutes could have been shaved off the movie by cutting some of the worst jokes Sandler has ever attempted. For the most part the movie is semi-serious, peppering in some pop culture references and one or two sentence long jabs.
However, there are other jokes that take up whole scenes that not only feel unnecessary, but like they come from a completely different film. Some are, but not limited to, a clown’s suicide and playing puppet with an unconscious man’s body. Surprisingly, those two are not as closely related as you’d think.
The rest of the cast is rounded out by Sandler’s typical crew. Terry Crews (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “Idiocracy”) and Kevin James (“Paul Blart Mall Cop,” “Barnyard”) show up and are pleasant. Not terribly funny, although Crews does get some good screen time as a bedtime themed wrestler.
Nick Swardson (“Reno 911!,” “30 Minutes or Less”) is also here, as useless as he’s ever been in a Sandler film, and Rob Schnieder (“The Hot Chick,” “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo”) plays a…Iranian business man who spies on Sandy as he lives in his pool house while he’s away. Complete with brownface for his actual starring scenes as well.
“Sandy Wexler” sees Sandler and company trying for once. There’s a predictable, but earnest story about love and honesty framed around a likable Sandler character. Even his voice isn’t nearly as annoying as you’d think it would be. But a gargantuan runtime, loads of useless characters and jokes, a flip flopping tone, and downright awful scenes that serve no purpose than to tell a mean joke means that, while his best film since “Funny People,” “Sandy Wexler” is just as annoying Sandler as ever. 1.5/5
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