Capra with cusswords

Rating: 5/10 (20 July 2006)

"Click" is a be-careful-what-you-wish-for comedy about a driven and harried, up-and-coming architect (Adam Sandler) who finds a unique and "Twilight Zone"-inspired way to balance both work and family. On a trip to find a "universal remote," he stumbles into a Bed, Bath and Beyond (one would love to know how much money BBB shelled out for this product placement par excellence) where he meets a strange man (who else but Christopher Walken?) who gives him a state-of-the-art remote that can single-handedly control not only all his electronic devices but his life as well. For Michael Newman soon discovers that, just by clicking buttons, he can freeze moments or fast forward through all those little unpleasantries that can make daily life so burdensome and onerous. The trouble begins, however, when the remote little takes control and starts racing Michael through his life at warp speed.
This is the kind of thing they used to toss off in a typical half-hour long episode of "Bewitched" or "I Dream of Jeannie" - minus, of course, all the cusswords, flatulence gags and dog-humping jokes with which the writers have seen fit to pad out the extra hour or so of screen time they need to fill. (Anyone who goes into "Click" thinking that this will be a family-friendly film is in for a very rude awakening). Then, after about an hour of repetitive, sitcom-level silliness, the film takes an abrupt turn into Capra-esquire sentimentality, of the you-never-know-what-you-have-until-you've-lost-it variety. Yet, although the writing at this point has all the consistency of a melted marshmallow, this still turns out to be the best part of the movie - which tells you a great deal about the quality of the rest of the film. It's odd, too, because for all its we-are-the-world mushy-headedness, the movie can't resist taking the usual egregious swipes at Arabs, gays and overweight people.
Sandler has done this sort of shtick so often in the past that he goes through the film virtually on auto-pilot. In addition to Walken, of course, the gifted supporting cast - which includes Kate Beckinsale, David Hasselhoff, Henry Winkler, Julie Kavner, Sean Astin, and SNL's talented Rachel Dratch do what they can with the material and provide shining moments that help us get through the whole ordeal. But "Click," on the whole, is mass-market movie-making done on a very low scale.