Movie Review: Sandler, Spade seek “Do-Over” on Netflix

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His move to Netflix has made accessing Adam Sandler movies easier than ever. As if that’s a good thing.

“The Do-Over,” his latest quick and dirty, is a slapdash action comedy with more plot twists than laughs, and lots more day work for his large retinue of hangers-on.

Shot in and around Savannah, it’s about a Palm Coast bank manager (David Spade) who finally married the Prom Queen (Natasha Leggero), whose best drunken tramp years were burned on Sean Astin, with whom she had heinous twins.Whom Charlie is now raising.

But their high school reunion pairs him up with old pal “Maxie Pad” (Sandler), a live-for-the-moment FBI agent who convinces him to join him in assuming the identities of two rich, dead crooks.

Skip off to Puerto Rico and start over, right? He has to kidnap Charlie to do it, but fair’s fair.

Complications pile up as the dead guys’ associates take an interest in them.

Nick Swardson plays a mysterious stranger who stalks them, Torsten Vorges a hit-man called “The Gymnast,” Paula Patton the widow of one of the dead men and Luis Guzman a Puerto Rican bartender who is very comfy with his naked body.

Sandler and Spade hit the bars in floral shirts and Detroit Tigers hats.

“Too Magnum?”

“You can NEVER be too Magnum. Lose the hat, though.”

There’s a bad Dan Patrick cameo (as usual), a lot of lame Sandler riffs on homosexuality and say, a bartender’s Neanderthal beard.

“Hey, ‘Encino Man.”

“Do-Over” is “Grown-Ups” with guns. And with no Colin Quinn or Chris Rock or Rob Schneider or Norm McDonald or Kevin Nealon. There’s no real direction, no real acting, just a lot of Sandler dependents hitting their marks, collecting their checks and trying not to look as if they’re wondering what there is to do in Savannah after today’s filming.

Sandler may have jumped to Netflix at just about the right time, and his ongoing loyalty to his posse is laudable. But he has been phoning this garbage in for 15 years.

The best you can say about “The Ridiculous Six” and “The Do-Over” is that if Netflix has allowed him to reach his aging, shrinking fanbase easier, it’s also made avoiding his work easier still. So long as you don’t accidentally hit “play” when “Do-Over” is the first thing that pops up on your Netflix queue.

1half-star

MPAA Rating: unrated, with torture, bloody violence, nudity, profanity

Cast: Adam Sandler, David Spade, Paula Patton, Kathryn Hahn, Torsten Vorges, Renee Taylor, Natasha Leggero, Michael Chiklis,
Credits: Directed by Steven Brill, script by Kevin Barnett, Chris Pappas. A Netflix Original release.

Running time: 1:48

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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