In 2014, when Netflix first began flinging contracts at anyone interested — a strategy that has yielded some pretty strong results from time to time — they let Adam Sandler get in on the spending spree with an engagement to develop four original films for exclusive release on the online video-streaming platform. The first of those four, the Western-comedy The Ridiculous Six, debuted late last year. (I was no great fan.) But it’s the responsibility of the critic to approach each new film with an open mind and the hope (even when that hope is against hope) that it’ll be at least half-decent. Sandler’s still on the hook for three more movies, so here we are again.
The second Happy Madison-Netflix joint will materialize online come Memorial Day, under the title The Do-Over, and now has a teaser trailer. The film stars Sandler and frequent cohort David Spade as a pair of galoots who try to assume new identities in anticipation of their 25th high-school reunion. The trouble, however, is that the chumps whose identities they’ve nicked are in hot water with some heavily armed adversaries, and trouble has now come a-callin’. The film, which will also bring in Paula Patton as a supporting character, sees Sandler shifting focus from the Western genre to a more action-minded mode of filmmaking, involving the typical chases, cliff-jumps, and gun-shooting of thriller vehicles. But of course the film needs that distinctive Sandler flavor, so there are also bikini-clad women laughing derisively at an unseen figure’s bare penis, Sandler sarcastically calling Spade “tough guy,” and a promise that the madness will continue.
If Sandler continues to treat this four-picture contract as a genre-exercise film cycle, there are a lot of exciting directions he could take whatever comes next. Screwball romance, but with Adam Sandler! Moody film noir, but with Adam Sandler! Bergmanesque existential black comedy, but with Adam Sandler! The possibilities are endless.
