The Typical Comedy

Rating: 6/10 (11 December 2015)

We all know what a comedy is and we can all predict the plot of the movie before even finishing it, wouldn't it be nice if we had a comedy where we didn't know what was going to happen? Or if the movie surprised us at the end? Happy Gilmore isn't an exception. Happy Gilmore is about this guy who is kind of struggling with living and his grandma gets kicked out of her house which really upsets him. During the process of moving his grandma out he comes to find that he is really good at golf, but not in the normal way he isn't necessarily, "professional" he just runs and hits the ball and it just soars through the air. This guys name is Happy Gilmore, Happy ends up going to the big tournament where he must face off with the best golfers in the world, here he faces many challenges and has to learn to be a better golfer to win the tournament and use that money to buy back his mothers home. This movie is just like any other cliché movie that the main person overcomes the challenge, or the hero wins the war, etc.
The biggest struggle Happy has to overcome in this film is his biggest competition, a guy named Shooter McGavin who is a real professional golfer who has been doing it a whole lot longer than Gilmore. Happy Gilmore isn't completely taken by surprise with golf because he has been playing hockey is whole life which basically involves the same swing technique and everything that golfing does. But Happy realizes that he won't ever have the chance to win the tournament unless he seeks help from someone who knows what exactly they are doing. The person that Gilmore goes to and seeks out is a guy he knows as Chubbs, who has a fake arm because it got bitten off during a golf tournament by an alligator. This movie is definitely one of those, "dirty secret comedies" where the humor is just kind of dumb comedy but that doesn't mean it isn't funny, it definitely is a funny movie! This movie is attracted for its simplistic representation and I would concur, because you already know what basically is going to happen before the movie even ends. The main part of this movie is that Happy has to beat Shooter McGavin in a tournament in order to pay for his Grandmas house so she doesn't have to move out. Whenever there is a plot like this in a movie, you know that the main character or hero is going to come through with the challenge and everyone is going to live happily-ever-after.
The tournament starts out fair and they keep playing through it, eventually everyone is eliminated except the two that face off in the end. It comes down to the last hole and Shooter swings an impressive hit that puts him ahead a little bit, as long as Happy doesn't get it in in less amount of hits. Unfortunately, an accident happens with a bystander and a big tower falls down blocking the course, Happy wants people to move it and go again when its clear, but Shooter says the rules say that once you start a hole you have to finish it. Gilmore takes this and has a flashback to when he went mini-golfing with Chubbs and how he had taught him to be the ball and to just relax and take a breath. Gilmore does just that and he ends up using the fallen over tower to his advantage to hit the ball like you would hit it if you were playing mini-golf, the ball bounces all over the place and eventually finds its way into the hole. This scene is very dramatic as you can imagine and when it goes in everyone goes crazy and starts cheering and celebrating. Gilmore gets a prize jacket and a trophy, but more importantly he gets money that he later uses to save his grandmas house.
This is why I am not super impressed with this movie; it is funny but very predictable. But to come from the other side, it is just a comedy, "a dumb comedy" more specifically so it doesn't necessarily need to have some super in depth plot or some big surprise that happens. That's the whole point of this movie, it's just like a dumb comedy that makes you laugh even though it might seem un-intelligent or looked down upon. Even thought this movie might have a normal plot and is nothing special, it is still a good movie and it definitely made us laugh.
I think the characters were chosen very wisely, the actual actors that played the characters and the actual characters themselves. They really complement each other and they build on each other, the main character wouldn't be the main character without his supporting characters and those characters really did help Adam Sandler in this case. For example, when Gilmore goes to the mini-golf course with Chubbs (Carl Weathers) they really improve Gilmores skills and help him basically win the tournament in the end and this is a key point in the movie. I think the casting director really hit it on the head.
In conclusion I would say that to criticize this movie for having a cliché plot would be unfair and if that is the only thing I got out of this movie that would be a lie. Because this movie is a first of its time it is a classic. This movie is a knee slapper and I would say a classic, lots of people know what this movie is and have probably seen it. In the end this is still a very funny movie and I would recommend to anyone.