Movie Review: “The Ridiculous 6”

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You knew that somebody was going to take the piss out of the pretentious king of movie mashups, Quentin Tarantino.

And you knew that it would never be Adam Sandler & Co. who managed that.

“The Ridiculous 6,” which major studios passed on and Netflix got made, is a parody of Tarantino’s talky/violent/n-word riddled “event” Western, “The Hateful Eight.”

Tarantino releases his movie in “70 mm” (in select cinemas). “Ridiculous 6” is in “4K.” Tarantino pushes a slight story into three hours, with overture and intermission. Team Sandler reaches for the two hour mark.

Tarantino serves of Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen — his “regulars.” Sandler brings Rob Schneider back from the Old Jewish Comics Home, and gives more work to David Spade, Vanilla Ice, Jon Lovitz and sports talker Dan Patrick, condemned to be Abe Lincoln in his most disastrous Sandler cameo in one of Sandler’s worst films.

Which is saying something.

The premise here — a movie basically inspired by the trailer to “Hateful Eight” (which opens New Year’s) — is that Sandler is “White Knife,” an orphan raised by Apache.

“I jus’ dress like this so’s I don’t get scalped out there on the prairie,” he drawls. Sort of.

His long-lost Desperado Daddy (Nick Nolte) shows up, offers him the stash from his biggest job, and is promptly nabbed by his old gang (led by Danny Trejo).

White Knife, or “Tommy,” must leave behind his intended, Smokin’ Fox (Julia Jones), find Daddy’s treasure and rescue him. Along the way, he discovers Pappa Was a Rollin’ Stone. Schneider plays a half-Mexican dolt sired by the outlaw, Taylor Lautner an utter dope fathered by him, Terry Crews, Luke Wilson and Jorge Garcia play the the other half-brothers.

Ridiculous.

Unlike Tarantino, whose movie has about a dozen “hateful” characters to be dispatched, Sandler and his crew at least can count. The ridiculous are indeed six in number.

Will Forte and Steve Zahn and Nick Swardson are among the members of a gang of one-eyed outlaws out for the same stash.

Vanilla Ice plays Mark Twain, Lovitz a governor and Blake Shelton is Wyatt Earp in a big poker game. John Turturro is Abner Doubleday, trying to teach the Chinese building the railroad how to play baseball.

The humor comes virtue of donkey diarrhea, bad-pun “Injun” names (“Never Wears Bra”) and elderly Native American actors cracking jokes in the modern vernacular.

“Wow, that was uncool,” the aged chief (Saginaw Grant) complains.

The production values are pretty high. A Western with good locations, horses, a stagecoach and an Indian village isn’t hard to manage.

There’s just nothing to this — nothing funny, at least. It’s hatefully long, has some bizarre violence (Harvey Keitel and Steve Buscemi are involved) and is built around another inept-and-doesn’t-care-that-he-is turn by Sandler.

Sure, he’s always creating work for his cronies. It’s become very apparent, over the years, that his real reason for doing this is that they’re the only ones to reassure him on the set that he’s funny. When he isn’t.

If you’re trying to take the piss out of Tarantino, and somebody needs to, you need to bring more game than this.

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MPAA Rating: unrated, with profanity, violence and defecation gags

Cast: Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, Danny Trejo, Julia Jones, Terry Crews, Taylor Lautner, Luke Wilson,Vanilla Ice, Nick Nolte, Jorge Garcia, Blake Shelton, David Spade, Jon Lovitz, Dan Patrick
Credits: Directed by Frank Coraci, script by Tim Herlihy and Adam Sandler. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:56

About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine
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1 Response to Movie Review: “The Ridiculous 6”

  1. carlosdev says:

    No love for Tarantino eh? While I agree that his fanbase tends to give him too much adoration, Pulp Fiction is a great movie and Inglorious Basterds and Deathproof are both pretty good. But I’m curious; is your problem with Tarantino that you believe that he’s overpraised, or do you genuinely not like his movies? P.S. I imagine I could go back and read your reviews on his films but I’m just too lazy.

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