3 out of 10
“You shot me down everytime I tried to grow as an actor and now i’ve wrought this on the world.” This is what I imagined Adam Sandler thinking during the entire screenwriting process for “Jack and Jill”, a movie that has all the childish stupidity of a Sandler film with the added bonus of one of the worst characters I’ve ever had the displeasure of sitting through. Sandler plays dual roles as Jack, an advertising executive, and Jill, Jack’s twin sister who is visiting the family for the Thanksgiving holiday. Jack can’t stand her, she decides to stay longer, Jack decides that the only way to get rid of her is to find her a man, and that sadly cues Al Pacino, playing himself, who agrees to shoot a commercial for Jack on one condition, Jack get Jill to fall in love with him. Poop, farts, tired gags (at the expense of Mexicans, old movies) and cartoonish violence and slapstick all follow, but worst of all is that the movie spends most of its time on Jill, a loud, obnoxious Jewish stereotype who squawks everything she says. Jill looks and acts like a man (sweats terribly, scratches herself, and can lift weights like a body-builder, all not the least bit hilarious) and she is portrayed as insincere, foolish, and freakish. She knocks herself out with the “Price is Right’ wheel, a horse collapses when she sits on it, in one scene she smacks an old-woman repeatedly in the face. This character is bad sketch comedy all the way and yet she is expected to be the film’s emotional center in the later half as well. The minute I saw Sandler doing drag, I knew this was a one joke premise, a charmless, unfunny, abominable one -joke premise with barely any trace of wit whatsoever. Knowing Sandler films, it will probably earn money, but to me, it deserves a top spot as one of the years most unbearable films.
