With the artistic freedom given to him by his eight-picture Netflix deal, Adam Sandler has made his All That Jazz.
The puerile comic despised by most critics wears his heart on his sleeve for Sandy Wexler’s very-long-for-an-Adam-Sandler-movie run time of two hours and 10 minutes.
The result borders on outsider art, with scenes that stretch way past their warranty, and a tone that wobbles from immature slapstick to inelegant, spasmodic tugs at the heartstrings.
And yet there is something so authentic in this film that once you get past the annoying voice and some of the dreadfully unfunny side characters, it is disarmingly sweet and even occasionally clever. I would never go so far as to call Sandy Wexler a good movie, but it is a unique one, and strangely likeable.
Besides, if every name in Hollywood is willing to show up for a cameo, what does it say about you if you can’t have a laugh?
Blatantly ripping off Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose, Sandy Wexler is framed by a gathering of famous comics and producers recollecting about a legendarily inept talent manager. (The list of celebs range from Chris Rock, Judd Apatow and Lorne Michaels all the way down to Vanilla Ice.)
We cut to 1990s Los Angeles (cue the Red Hot Chili Peppers) and there’s the mush-mouthed Wexler (Sandler) with a beeper on his belt walking past Tower Records, trying to convince Arsenio Hall to be his next client.
There are plenty of chuckles for showbiz insiders (a Lew Wasserman joke!) mixed with general surreal silliness. Wexler lives in the pool cabana of a wealthy Persian-Jew who is never around but always watching from hidden cameras. He is voiced by Rob Schneider, and gets a few quality zings in via stashed speakers, which is more than I can say for other Sandler regulars who play Wexler clients.
Kevin James sucks the air out of any scene with his dopey (and borderline offensive) ventriloquist act, and the collapsed neutron star of comedy, the shockingly unfunny Nick Swardson, is an incompetent daredevil. (The joke is that he keeps crashing into things.)
Terry Crews, making his sixth Sandler collaboration for those of you who play bar trivia, does better as a pro wrestler with a rock-a-bye-baby gimmick.
Wexler’s big moment comes when he’s chaperoning a client’s children at Six Flags and spots a natural talent in Courtney (Jennifer Hudson), singing as an Ugly Duckling in a kiddie show. He convinces her to sign as his client, which involves a weird trip to Alaska (?) to get her father’s approval (??) and that father is played by Aaron Neville (???) who at first we think is a prisoner but is actually a guard.
These departures from logic happen now and then, but there are payoffs, as with Neville and Hudson sing-speaking at one another.
In time (and Sandy Wexler’s slow roll affords it plenty of time) Sandy gets Courtney a recording contract, and soon she is a big star. They are also falling in love, but we know that a schlump like Sandy can’t end up with a princess like Courtney. Unless, of course, he takes her to the Griffith Observatory in a scene that, in its own dopey way, shares trace elements of charm with the recent scene from La La Land.
What’s unique about Sandy Wexler is that the romantic moments actually work, and its old-fashioned orchestral score (and references to old Hollywood) suggest a movie your grandparents might love. But then there’s the issue of the infantile voices and 1990s nostalgia (remember Fruitopia? Remember Chris Isaak?) that is unlikely to land with that audience.
In time it becomes clear that Sandy Wexler, co-written Tim Herlihy and Dan Bulla and directed by Steven Brill, longtime Sandler collaborators, was made for a target demo of one: Adam Sandler. And with all of his friends there to cheer him along it’s hard to totally resist its purity.
Sandy Wexler is now available on Netflix
