SANDY WEXLER - REVIEW

Happy Madison returns with Sandy Wexler, another Netflix-exclusive release starring Adam Sandler. This time, it's a biopic of the titular talent manager, who managed Sandler among many others. The film focuses on Wexler's discovery of a talented unknown singer he also falls in love with.

While this is a rare genre for Sandler to tackle, we're very much in familiar territory here between his usual team's countless cameos (Schneider, Vanilla Ice, Lovitz etc.), the actor himself doing a silly voice and reliably goofy humour throughout. Essentially, this is your typical agent-finds-talent/talent-outgrows-agent story in the vein of Broadway Danny Rose, except with a corny love story at its heart and a cartoonish tone. Jennifer Hudson portrays Courtney Clarke, the singer Sandy first meets performing in a duck costume for kids in a Six Flags amusement park and she's easily the most likeable aspect of this movie. She's obviously talented and never becomes the diva you expect her to become even when she's super popular. Some of Sandy's other clients include Kevin James' ventriloquist, Terry Crews' wrestler and Nick Swardson's Evel Knievel-style stuntman. They're all pretty ridiculous but help keep the film fun throughout.

Then there's Adam Sandler, who portrays Sandy Wexler as a bit of a goofball, to say the least: he's a messy eater, feeds his clients white lies constantly, has an obnoxious fake laugh, often has poor instincts and speaks like Little Nicky and The Waterboy's love child. The film walks the line between straight-up biopic, cruel roast and pure farce so the tone is equally inconsistent. Ultimately, this is a standard, decently made comedy biopic but with Sandler giving such a broad, unconvincing performance, it distracts from situations we're meant to care about more often than not. Admittedly, there are some funny moments in the film including Sandy exploding a raccoon with a baseball bat, Kevin James' bizarre relationship with his own ventriloquist puppets, Nick Swardson's repeated failed stunt attempts and a random but welcome Beavis & Butt-Head cameo. The idea of having some of Wexler's more famous clients like David Spade, Jimmy Kimmel, Pauly Shore and Weird Al appear in the film is a good one but their documentary-style interviews are purely expositional.

Overall, this is once again a very average Sandler effort that should leave most Netflix viewers feeling indifferent. It's well made, Jennifer Hudson brings some charm and talent to the mix and parts of the film are funny but Sandler's lead performance is so annoying, it almost kills the film.

Not bad but uneven.