Benchwarmers
is another in the seemingly endless string of pity films that Adam Sandler funds
to keep his friends Dennis Dugan in the director’s chair and Rob Schneider
out of the insurance business. The plot of this shameless Nerd Revenge crowd-pleaser
couldn’t be any more implausible unless it had a robotic butler in it for
no apparent reason - wait it does have a robotic butler in it for no apparent
reason. The saddest part of this booger-eating, fart-fest is that they dragged
Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite) into this awful thing to play Napoleon Dynamite
who eats his boogers. (That’s his new skill). Truth be told you can tell
that he's having the time of his life hanging out with these SNL vets and he actually
acquits himself well enough.
Much
like the TVA and the CCC of the depression era, Benchwarmers is another Happy
Madison make-work project for Rob Schneider who shares Sandler’s anthropology
with David Spade and (do I really have to type this again) Dennis Dugan in a film
that leaves no gross-out, cheap-shot, bodily fluid, bathroom joke stone unturned.
The three amigos are old school-chums (never mind that Heder looks 35 years younger
than Schneider) who suffered through childhoods marred by traumatic bullying and
sports-related humiliation. To get back at all those jocks who made their lives
such hell, they stumble on the realistic notion of forming a three-man baseball
team to take on bully-jock little league teams (and in some cases their bully-dads)
in order to exact their revenge. Pretty much the sort of thing that you see happening
all over America these days. I will say that this part allowed for a couple of
marginally enjoyable walk-ons, namely Craig Kilbourn and Norm MacDonald.
Neither
Heder or Spade have improved their athletic “skills” over the years,
but Schneider has somehow turned into a one-man Yankees team, seemingly unable
to swing at a baseball that doesn’t sail over the fence. Unless it was intended
to nail some rotten 12 year old in the chest. Filmed comedy is really such a strange
beast, to be fair this film is supposed to be dumb and it is exceedingly dumb
and I’ll admit that the mostly teenage crowd that I watched it with laughed
throughout. Thus at least opening the door for the argument that if a film is
able to entertain it’s target audience then who are we as critics to complain.
I’ll just shut that door now and complain like hell because this film is
just wrong on just about every level (for example the bits involving the "small
person" were exclusively about laughing at him not with him, hmm? - isn't
this movie supposed to be about embracing those typically alienated by the nature
of competitive sports?) Bottom Line - Dennis Dugan should have his Directors license
revoked because he is one of the chief purveyors of comic crap working today.
Then again how can you blame him? I’ll bet he said “could you freshen
up this Marg for me?” twice as many times as he said “action” or
“cut.” There is so much randomness to the narrative that it's almost
as though Dugan just let the tape roll until someone gets nailed in the nuts or
beat down by Schneider badly enough that he has to yell “cut” too make
sure everyone is still alive.
Jon
Lovitz plays a wealthy former nerd whose picked-on son Schneider takes under his
wing (kinda like Sandler typically does) and as a result Lovitz agrees to lay
out the cash that sponsors this Benchwarmer phenomenon. I will admit to laughing
at Lovitz a few times, he always strikes me as someone who’d rather be somewhere
else and really doesn’t care if he’s funny. “Yea, that’s it
- that’s the ticket, I don’t give a crap - remember that kid.”
But as for Spade he does nothing but recycle the same smarmy snottiness that he’s
been beating us over the head with since leaving SNL, and Schneider once again
gets to be the unlikely regular shmo who somehow manages to become a hero. It’s
the same old crap and it’s just a shame that Heder was seduced into this
misbegotten mess. But as I mentioned, running Nappy D, up the flagpole one more
time isn’t that colossal a risk. He holds his own here, mostly because he
doesn’t have to go over-the-top at all - a nerd is all we know him as - still
the Napoleon thing has got a shelf life.
Again
comedy is an unpredictable thing, we loved it when Matt Dillon bounced a ball
off of the head of a retarded kid in There’s Something About Mary, but the
same sort of bits where Schneider purposely nails a kid with a line drive and
physically batters another just come off kinda weird and awkward. Like perhaps
the scene was actually written for the film's producer. Still for every awkward
moment there are several titty twisters, face-farts, boogers, projectile vomiting,
people being smacked in the nuts, little dick jokes, and this is merely scratching
the ass of the surface.
The
plot stumbles along amid every underdog sports cliché imaginable, a lot
of ridiculous self-esteem building geek-power baloney, and of course ends in a
glorious victory for the nerds of the world. One of these days someone ought to
do a fact check and report to Hollywood about how things have changed since Revenge
of the Nerds and that nerds are no longer unfashionable and pretty much rule the
world. It’s the dumb jocks who’ll wind up working construction the rest
of their lives that need the help. I'm sure Revenge of the Jocks is not an idea
that's too far ahead of it's time.
There
is a big twist of a character reveal that we must be subjected to before we can
go home, but only a big fartknocker would spoil a surprise that earth-shattering.
Something tells me that this film was originally going to be a vehicle for Sandler,
after all he is a credible jock, who’s proven his prodigious ability to hit
a ball a great distance (Happy Gilmore) and when he beats on kids (see Billy Madison)
he’s able to make it funny. Schneider on the other hand has probably never
hit a homer in his life and when he starts beating on the kids it doesn’t
work at all. It’s not funny, because he’s only a few inches taller than
them. Again comic child-abuse is an ephemeral and most mysterious thing to capture.
I think the Great and Mighty Sandman wisely took a powder on this one which worked
out great for his pal Rob, but not so great for his buddy Dennis, who probably
would’ve had a modest hit on his hands instead of a lotta shit on his hands.
“Be a angel and run get me another one of these Margs will ya Rita?”
