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Nasty holiday celebration
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times Some of my best friends are Jewish, and I wouldn't recommend Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights to any of them. Or to the gentiles or to this one guy who swore he was an atheist until his stock portfolio crashed. Eight Crazy Nights is a thankfully short barrage of animated animosity, a batch of crude, cruel and unusual jokes serving no purpose for the holiday season despite a late detour into sentimental dreck. Just because the movie is set during Hanukkah and Christmas doesn't mean it's a gift to moviegoers. It's more like getting something that looks like a lump of coal in your stocking except for a distinct odor. Sandler provides the voice and physical inspiration for Davey Stone, a 33-year-old delinquent whose drunken vandalism and nasty disposition make him a pariah in the snowy town of Dukesberry. His latest crime spree, set to one of several forgettable musical numbers, leaves him poised for a 10-year jail term until kindly old Whitey Duvall (also Sandler using an annoying falsetto) suggests community service for Davey helping to referee youth basketball games. Davey is terrible with kids, ridiculing one mercilessly for being overweight and spoiling everyone's fun. But he takes a shine to Benny (Austin Stout), probably because he has a hot mom (Jackie Titone, Sandler's fiancee). Whitey's patience, Benny's innocence and a few beers eventually redeem Davey after we're convinced he's a lost cause. Such awareness about the movie doesn't take long. Eight Crazy Nights cashes in on the popularity of Sandler's The Chanukah Song, an amusing litany of celebrities who are Jewish or cool enough that they should be, in the comedian's view. That song and its sequels have nothing to do with Eight Crazy Nights except for an end credits performance of part 3 without visuals. The movie isn't as cleverly written as its closest antecedent, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. That irreverent 'toon was edgy with social purpose. Sandler's idea of edgy is having cute deer laughing until they defecate and innocent bystanders urinating in their pants. Everything in this inconsistent movie exists only to be torn down or gassed by flatulence. Eight Crazy Nights celebrates commercialism more than anything, turning a shopping mall into a place of worship and invoking a record number of product placements that probably financed the project. A few guilty laughs sneak in along the way due to shock value more than anything. The PG-13 rating is surprising considering the way Davey's nasty disposition manifests itself. Parents are cautioned that Eight Crazy Nights isn't a cartoon for children, or adults, for that matter. Maybe this is Sandler's way of apologizing to disappointed fans for going legit with Punch-Drunk Love. Now he just has another movie to be sorry about. * * * Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
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