The price is right, but the payment is short

Rating: 5/10 (26 November 2011)

Golf is dreadfully boring. Thankfully, films like Caddyshack and Happy Gilmore posses ambition to bring fun to the green. Both are fresh ideas that use their actors to motivate their screenplay. Unfortunately, Happy Gilmore manages to drive itself into the high grass area shortly when the game commences. Let's watch...
Happy Gilmore is often cited as "Sandler's funniest film." I'm not sure he has one. I recently did a fairly lengthy blog post on the subject of Sandler's films and tried my hardest to find the one that made me laugh and enjoy thoroughly. I'd probably say his best piece of work had to be Funny People. Was it funny? Not a whole lot, but it was enjoyable and a step in the right direction Sandler quickly abandoned.
The story of Happy Gilmore is simple; a loud, energetic, aspiring hockey player of the same name takes up golf when he finds out he has a powerful swing. He has serious anger management issues, and because of that, somehow, he attracts the gorgeous Julie Bowen, who plays a Public Relations Director, and also, a fellow golf player named Shooter McGavin (McDonald) who wants Gilmore off the face of the golf world.
What Gilmore desperately wants to accomplish is getting $270,000 so he can buy back his grandmother's house that was recently taken away by the IRS because of failure to meet tax payments over the last decade.
There's the setup, compiled of the obligatory sports movie and love story clichés, but the main problem is, well, Sandler's character. The Happy Gilmore character is odd, annoying, and aggravating. This is what you call a film's desperate attempt at comedy. Gilmore is easily fatigued, which is why his character is seriously hard to like or side with. The character gets into fights every few minutes, resulting in lame, cartoonish blows to the face and also to Sandler's personal ego.
It seems the film couldn't succeed in the writing portion and went immediately to the punching, kicking, "things didn't go my way" kind of slapstick. Keep in mind that if you read many of my reviews you'll know I am a fan of silly slapstick. It takes a certain mood and a very likable lead actor to pull off good slapstick. I wonder if Chris Farley could've brought more coherent likability to the Happy Gilmore character.
Also, the product placement is shamefully explicit. I'm aware it's golf, and like every other sport, is known to display product placement around the field, but when doing it in a film it appears that some of the big name companies are put in for the money - not the realism of the source material. Especially the utterly shameless marketing for Subway. Have mercy.
When compared to present day Adam Sandler, Happy Gilmore has a harmless innocence to it. It's not harmful in any way, except maybe your tolerance level. Sandler finds will be at home with this, while others will search the screenplay high and low for the real humor.
But, the film does deliver laughs, just not consistently. There's nothing more uncomfortable than watching a comedy, that is supposed to be funny, but isn't. Happy Gilmore gets laughs, but a lot of them aren't distinct in any way. I think the most memorable scene is when Bob Barker and Happy Gilmore square off on the green. I think one of Barker's lines before the scene should've been "humor, come on down!" Starring: Adam Sandler, Julie Bowen, Christopher McDonald, and Carl Weathers. Directed by: Dennis Dugan.