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As good Deeds go, this one is okay
[Photo: New Line Cinema/Columbia Pictures]
Adam Sandler works on his romantic lead skills with Winona Ryder in Mr. Deeds. She plays a cartoonish tabloid TV reporter who falls for him. |
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published June 27, 2002
Adam Sandler's remake of the classic Mr. Deeds Goes to Town isn't in that league. But it's not sacrilege, either.
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You have to wonder how many Adam Sandler fans will think Mr. Deeds is his idea. After all, we're dealing with a core audience for whom comedy began somewhere around The Ren and Stimpy Show, peaked with Jackass and coasts now on variations of American Pie.
For them, a little history lesson is in order, to broaden their horizons and prove that Sandler's take on Frank Capra's 1936 classic Mr. Deeds Goes to Town isn't the act of sacrilege some critics are claiming it to be. For those critics, comparing Sandler to that film's star, Gary Cooper, or the rags-to-riches yearnings of Great Depression America to today's Wall Street slump is unthinkable.
They have a point, but it smacks of elitism, what Capra's movie and Sandler's remake are deflating. Both films arrive when the masses mistrust the muckety-mucks (perhaps any release date would work), and it's fun watching a common man school the know-it-alls. The new, unimproved Mr. Deeds duplicates Capra's material with adjustments for inflation and poorer taste, enabling another generation of have-nots and have-somes to poke fun at the have-everythings.
The character of Longfellow Deeds is as common as they come in the movies: an unfailingly kind person doing good deeds (hence his name) without second thoughts. Deeds has the soul of a poet but the simplicity of the greeting cards he writes as a side job. Through no fault of his own, Deeds becomes an uncommon man by inheriting $40-billion -- it took only $25-million in 1936 -- while blithely confounding rich white guys trying to steal it.
There isn't much difference on the surface between Cooper's Deeds and Sandler's. Both actors mumble their lines too much, and neither looks especially comfortable with being a love interest. Sandler wisely tones down his manic act, putting the movie more in line with The Wedding Singer than the antagonistic comedy of The Waterboy and Big Daddy. Watch closely and you'll see Sandler evolving into a capable romantic lead whenever fans allow him to grow up.
Sandler is trying here, leaving most of the goofy stuff to his co-stars. Winona Ryder provides a suitably cartoonish object of affection, a tabloid TV reporter who first wants to expose Deeds as a fool, then falls in love when she finds he isn't. Peter Gallagher bulges his eyes to compete with his eyebrows as Deeds' greedy rival. Steve Buscemi makes brief appearances as Deeds' appropriately named pal Crazy Eyes, and John Turturro commits grand larceny in each of his scenes as a "sneaky, sneaky" valet.
Director Steven Brill (Little Nicky) doesn't meddle much with Capra's success, a decision that makes Mr. Deeds seem like a lazy effort at times. Some jokes are left behind before the laugh develops, others are repeated ad nauseam, and several scenes take those absurd detours Sandler's fans expect: a David Bowie sing-along in a helicopter, for example, and a cat fight between Ryder and a burly waitress (Conchata Ferrell) defending Deeds.
The result is an engagingly uneven comedy, sillier and less meaningful than Capra's version but certainly not an abomination. Mr. Deeds is fun but forgettable, even at a time when posterity is more easily earned. Safe to say this movie won't be taught in film classes 65 years from now, unless civilization is crumbling faster than we think.
Mr. Deeds
- Grade: B-
- Director: Steven Brill
- Cast: Adam Sandler, Winona Ryder, John Turturro, Peter Gallagher
- Screenplay: Tim Herlihy, based on Robert Riskin's screenplay for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, based on Clarence Budington Kelland's short story, Opera Hat.
- Rating: PG-13; crude humor, profanity, slapstick violence
- Running time: 91 min.
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