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Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights

(Animated)

By SCOTT FOUNDAS

Davey Stone, Whitey, Eleanore
Davey Stone, Whitey and Eleanore, all voiced by Adam Sandler, star in 'Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights' from Sony Pictures.

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A Sony Pictures Entertainment release of a Columbia Pictures presentation of a Happy Madison production. Produced by Adam Sandler, Jack Giarraputo, Allen Covert. Executive producer, Ken Tsumura. Co-producer, Brooks Arthur. Directed by Seth Kearsley. Screenplay, Brooks Arthur, Allen Covert, Brad Isaacs, Adam Sandler.

Voices:
Davey/Whitey/Eleanore/Deer - Adam Sandler
Jennifer - Jackie Titone
Benjamin - Austin Stout
Mayor - Kevin Nealon
Chinese Waiter/
Narrator - Rob Schneider
Judge - Norm Crosby
Tom Baltezor - Jon Lovitz

The first of its star's vehicles to bear a possessory credit before the title, "Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights" merits the distinction. Sandler co-wrote, co-produced, performed four roles and contributed a half-dozen songs to this deranged animated feature. But the result, close to Sandler's raison d'etre, may puzzle his most ardent fans. Although presented in the guise of innocuous holiday entertainment, pic was rated PG-13 for a reason: This is a dark, vulgar, brooding turnoff of a movie, minus the steady laugh quotient needed to appease Sandler's core constituency. It is quite likely to send unsuspecting parents rushing from the local multiplex with tiny tots in tow. But like Sandler's other, infamous low-grosser "Little Nicky," this off-kilter anti-kidpic is in many ways one of his most interesting films, maybe his most interesting to date.

"Eight Crazy Nights" is the closest a Sandler pic has come to the essence of the actor-comedian's persona. Pic is a highly expressive, personal art piece -- a vanity project without vanity -- that only someone at the top of the Hollywood food chain could get studio money to make.

Thirtysomething delinquent Davey Stone (voiced by and drawn to resemble Sandler) goes on a Chanukah-timed odyssey of vandalism, verbal and physical assaults and generally loutish behavior. He stumbles drunk from a Chinese restaurant and leads cops on a wild foot chase through the fictional town of Dukesberry, while a Sandler-performed song about how much Davey hates the holidays booms on the soundtrack. More drinking and disorder ensue, along with several more tone-deaf ballads that incorporate "erection," "ass" and "shit" into lyrical rhymes in ways one never dreamed possible.

Finally Davey is arrested and sentenced to community service as the assistant to the geriatric referee of a youth basketball team, a helpless, 4-foot-tall old man whom Davey abuses. One could go on, but suffice it to say that there's a scene where a character proclaims, "The worst has happened; I'm covered in human feces." And he is.

But "Eight Crazy Nights" should not be dismissed without thought. Angry outbursts are, after all, one of the keys to Sandler's onscreen persona, and Davey is the first Sandler alter ego who retains his edge for most of the picture, who doesn't have his anger explained away as a sort-of nouveau chivalry employed to charm women or stand up to some reprehensible villain. "Eight Crazy Nights" is richer than any preceding Sandler pic in its depiction of an angry white suburban kid's sense of emasculation and purposelessness, coupled with a fierce determination to upend perceived Jewish stereotypes.

But even here, with Sandler conspicuously in full creative control, he appears to be holding back, stopping short of really plunging into that disaffection (which is also the self-consuming subject of Tom Green's and Johnny Knoxville's work). Davey is so unredeemable for so much of "Eight Crazy Nights" that when Sandler (with the aid of co-screenwriters Brooks Arthur, Allen Covert and Brad Isaacs) gives him an all-too-familiar third-act explanation for his frustrations, it feels like a copout.

And when the movie trudges toward an assembly line, all-you-need-is-love finale, it feels like an even bigger copout.

Cel-animated pic is well drawn. It's preceded by the live-action short subject "A Day With the Meatball," starring Sandler and the mangy pooch of the title.

(Technicolor, Deluxe prints); editor, Amy Budden; music, Ray Ellis, Marc Ellis, Teddy Castellucci; production designer, Perry Andelin Blake; art director/layout supervisor, Philip A. Cruden; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS), Gabe Veltri; supervising sound editor, Elmo Weber. Reviewed at the Beverly Connection, Beverly Hills, Nov. 25, 2002. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 86 MIN.

Additional voices: Tyra Banks, Blake Clark, Carl Weathers.

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