BEFORE: Maya Rudolph carries over from "Away We Go" as a happy accident. As does the theme of growing up and witnessing bad parenting skills.
THE PLOT: After their high school basketball coach passes away, five good friends and former teammates reunite for a Fourth of July holiday weekend.
AFTER: To use the basketball analogy, putting all these SNL veterans (plus Kevin James) together in one film should be the equivalent of an Olympic "Dream Team" - so why do so many shots end up missing the basket? Some land of course, but that's bound to happen when you throw so many up there - but shouldn't we expect a greater score? I guess you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, but still...
The five basketball teammates reunite as adults, and they (conveniently) happen to be in five different professional and romantic situations. The one who's still single is embarrassed about still being single, the one who's rich and successful is worried about how that looks to the others, the one who's a house-husband is embarrassed about that, and, well you get the idea. Everybody feels like they're some kind of screw-up, and no one seems comfortable in their own skin.
In addition, every one of them hassles the other four about their situations, breaking each other's balls in that way that only friends can. Not to be confused with the members of the losing basketball team, who all seem to live in the same town in upstate NY (what are the odds?) and break the winning team's balls in an unfriendly way, still disputing the outcome of the game 30 or so years ago (let it go, already!) By contrast, the wives and girlfriends of the 5 amigos have no issues with each other, despite vast differences in their ages and income levels (yeah, right...)
There is something of a message here, something about getting outside with your kids, switching off the cell phones and the Gameboys and teaching them how to skip a rock or jump into a lake, but it's mostly buried under the insults and slapstick humor, a situation all too common in Hollywood films these days. It's like someone couldn't decide between making a family film or a slapstick comedy, so they decided to split the difference - but trying to satisfy everyone often results in satisfying no one.
Starring Adam Sandler (last seen in "Funny People"), Chris Rock (last seen in "Bad Company"), David Spade, Kevin James (last seen in "Paul Blart: Mall Cop"), Rob Schneider, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello (last seen in "Secret Window" - damn, I missed her birthday by one day!), Colin Quinn, with cameos from Steve Buscemi (last heard in "G-Force") and Tim Meadows.
RATING: 4 out of 10 innertubes
This one is what I term an "Andy Ihnatko Surprise Party Planning Committee" Movie. As in, the friend who are planning my surprise birthday party are going to meet up at a movie theater, and when they tell me where they're going they make up a movie that they know I'd have zero chance of every wanting to see.
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(I find David Spade's ongoing career absolutely inexplicable. He's got Donald Trump's comb-over, Ethan Hawke's 1991 facial hair, and a smarmy, phone-it-in persona that wasn't even tolerable in a two-minute SNL sketch.)
It's also a little disappointing to see Kevin James in these "fat guy screams and flails his arms and crashes into things" roles. All those seasons of "King Of Queens" demonstrated that he has some great comedic acting chops.
The only reason I'm cutting Kevin James some slack is that his part in this film was reportedly originally written for Chris Farley - yes, that's how long this screenplay was in the works, which in itself may not be a good sign.
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