Hey, hey, hey, everyone! It's that time again for Adam Sandler's Mid-Life Crisis Variety Movie! This edition is sponsored by Coca-Cola, Dunkin' Donuts, and Royal Caribbean International. Returning once again as the supporting players is the Friends of Sandler Brigade. You can never not enjoy those folks. For this film, Sandler is pleased to bring to us JACK AND JILL, a "comedy" about the immense love and the misunderstandings that is shared by all families, especially around the holidays. Sandler will be playing Jack Sadelstein, and as Jill Sadelstein, his loud-mouthed twin sister, will be played by...Adam Sandler! Oh, this will be a joy to behold, let's watch and see.
No, no, you shouldn't watch, see, glare or even hear the pure garbage this monstrosity spews out. JACK AND JILL is far worst than can be predicted; a vile, scattershot creation that needed to be put out of its misery out back behind the dumpsters of Happy Madison Productions. But of course, Sandler always wants to stick up for any of his puke-green products and decided to ship this carcass to Columbia Pictures, to be duplicated for massive infection and devolution. JACK AND JILL is death, destroyer of theaters.
Jack is an L.A. ad man who produces television commercials. He has a wife and two kids. It is Thanksgiving time and he picks up his fellow Bronx-born sister for dinner. She stays longer than expected or he wanted. That's the outline of the plot. Add a love drunk and slumming Al Pacino, rampant product placement to the point where it literally becomes an actual commercial ("Welcome to Royal Caribbean International!"), and a ton of unfunny running jokes and behavioral problems for each and every character (He likes taping things to himself! She's a creepy abuela who chomps down hot peppers!) in each and every scene. There you have it, a complete disaster-piece written by Ben Zook, Steve Koren. and Robert Smigel.
Except for Al Pacino, who at least tries to camp up the bad material when he isn't awesomely insulting the other characters, everyone is either excruciating or a cardboard stand-in. Sandler mumbles and underacts as Jack but he punctuates everything that is already horrible about Jill and her demeanor. There's no reason we should care for Jill or cheer her in any way; we never learn anything about her besides a rampant incestuous vibe that is thankfully dropped at the halfway mark. Sadly, the writers or auteur terrible Dennis Dugan didn't remove her sexist, racist, princess mindset either. If they did that, then Sandler wouldn't have any material to work it. Oh no, we couldn't have that.
With each next installment with Sandler, Dugan continues to degrade into a far worse director. This film isn't a mess, it is a state of emergency. The bipolar script and its switches in tone and mood perfectly matches with Dugan's skills at making a story. The cutting of shots has people magically transported in and out of frame along with their costumes changed for random humor. The movie also has a lot of cameos, and not just Sandler's best friends mind you. This features such luminaries as the Sham-Wow guy and gives Bruce Jenner another terrible film to be included in. But of course, they can't really be called cameos because Dugan has them explicitly told to us so as not to confuse our simple minds. Honestly, except for bad movie nuts, does anyone know or truly care who Billy Blanks is?
This movie gets atrocious and hate-inducing when you actually think about its themes and messages. Like any film that involves drag or drag acting, there is a sequence where Jack has to dress up as Jill, in order to swoon Al Pacino into doing a Dunkin' Donuts commercial. For hilarious reasons, he has to do it in a public men's room instead of his own bedroom. The punchline has the quiet attendant helping him out and complementing it, basically informing the audience that transsexuals exist and are beautiful like anyone else. Dugan however, a person who has had an acting history as stereotypical gay guys, wanted to negate this by having a later scene where Katie Holmes calls a Jack "a weirdo". Also, if you are an atheist, you are a rat-faced hipster that should be shouted at and beaten up in public with a broken table leg.
JACK AND JILL was rated PG by the MPAA, despite featuring many racial insults and crude jokes about female hygiene. THE ARTIST received a PG-13 rating for a quick flipping of the bird and a gun being used. This comparison, or anything that you can think of, is the final nail in the coffin for myself. The only salvation I had with this piece of phlegmatic tripe is its ending. Screw the spoilers. JACK AND JILL ends with Al Pacino disowning the commercial he just witnessed, threatening Jack that it should be burned immediately and anyone who has seen it should be seriously talked to. Earlier in the film, it is stated that if the commercial can't be done, Jack's company will fold. What a great note to end on.
FINAL REVIEW: 1 / 5
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