Jack and Jill, 2011.
Directed Dennis Dugan.
Starring Adam Sandler, Al Pacino, Katie Holmes, Elodie Tougne, Rohan Chand, Eugenio Derbez, David Spade and Nick Swardson.
SYNOPSIS:
Advertising executive and family man Jack (Sandler) has to contend with the one event of the year he fears most… the Thanksgiving visit of his identical twin sister Jill (Sandler).
I feel compelled to write something about this film – despite everything in my body being affronted by the idea that some of you masochistic people will be compelled to pay and see this train wreck.
Jack and Jill is the most insipid effort from Happy Madison productions yet. It really is filmmaking at its most passionless, effortless, thoughtless, and wasteful.
The premise is that Jack (Adam Sandler) a popular television ad director is going to lose his company in this trying financial climate (ooohhh topical right – I know – this is just like fucking Win Win or Up in the Air except devoid of anything that made those films great) if he doesn’t get Al Pacino to do an ad for their biggest client, Dunkin’ Donuts. What a fucking tenuous bullshit excuse to get Pacino on board.
Also Jack’s strange, annoying, clearly Adam Sandler-in-drag, caricature, walking slogan T-Shirt that gets old in 2 seconds flat, sister Jill (Adam Sandler) is coming to visit. Doesn’t this just sound like the perfect situation for comedy ever… No. No it doesn’t. It sounds fucking stupid.
So in an effort to purge any remote desire you may have I’ll mention all the things you would know if you had seen it…
1. Everything that could be deemed as remotely funny is in the trailer. And you really only love the trailer because you think that it’s a parody of a trailer (as seen in Judd Apatow’s Funny People) because the premise is so bullshit.
2. Nothing remotely funny happens in the film except for the lowest common denominator fart jokes and slapstick falls with Adam Sandler in drag.
3. You get to see David Spade in drag for 1 minute and it’s boring and pointless. (Don’t even bother looking for it on Youtube).
4. Johnny Depp makes a cameo (as himself) for 1 second and it is funny because it’s an exchange with Al Pacino (if you like Depp he is MUCH MUCH funnier in his appearance in Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s Life’s Too Short).
5. If you do see the film you’ll notice a desperate grab for sincerity in portraying the the ‘twin’ experience. This sincerity may be attempting irony but it doesn’t work – like everything else in this film.
6. All SNL alumni are wasted and feel like they’e appearing for their pay check. And they recycle so many jokes, characters, personas from other Happy Madison films that it’s sickening. They literally cannablise peripheral characters from other films (the homeless guy is pretty much Steve Buscemi’s character from Big Daddy). It is nice to see Norm MacDonald – because he looks, sounds and is terribly funny (but just watch Dirty Work again instead for some great Norm).
7. Sandler and Co. do a great job of portraying racist generalisations of Mexicans in the film – it’s really to die for.
8. The finale of the film sees Adam Sandler talking to himself via both Jack and Jill characters in ‘Twin Speak’ – which is just an excuse for Sandler to do his “habbado odeb bo zzebbaddooo” bullshit language (this was funny in SNL and Billy Madison but that was about 15 years ago).
9. Al Pacino is a good sport for taking the piss out of himself steadily throughout – but wait – all the Pacino bits will be edited together on Youtube in no time so don’t bother.
This is the worst movie I’ve seen this year and perhaps the worst example of Hollywood Studio Comedy that has ever been committed to film. They need to keep the negative in a controlled environment just like the small pox virus so that people know how bad it is if anything else remotely like it is mentioned, pitched or discussed again.
Blake Howard is a writer/site director/podcaster at the castleco-op.com. Follow him on Twitter here: @BLAGatCCO.
Originally published December 4, 2011. Updated April 10, 2018.
