Jill and Jack (both, Adam Sandler) in Columbia Pictures' JACK AND JILL.
In a perfect world “Jack and Jill” wouldn’t exist as a movie. It would exist only as a trailer, and that trailer would function much like those sting operations in which fugitives are tricked into believing they won a new car and find themselves arrested when they attempt to claim their prize.
The only difference is that once people arrived in theaters to watch this terrible movie, they wouldn’t be arrested — they would be punished for their horrible taste by an usher in a plastic Rob Schneider mask who would pelt them with dead batteries and unsold DVD copies of “Bucky Larson: Born To be a Star.”
However, we do not live in a perfect world and the punishment for watching “Jack and Jill” is slightly less severe: Anyone caught buying a ticket to “Jack and Jill” will be forced to sit through 90 minutes of Adam Sandler wearing a dress as he farts on a withered, leathery pile of sadness that was once known as Al Pacino.
Ostensibly, “Jack and Jill” is about Jack (Sandler) a successful ad executive who is forced to deal with his estranged twin sister, Jill (Sandler again) who — due to her abject loneliness — pays Jack’s family an extended visit from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. But in a depressing twist, “Jack and Jill” is really about humiliating Pacino (who plays himself) in the most prolonged and embarrassing way possible. Cringe along as Pacino raps in a doughnut-print vest in a faux Dunkin’ Donuts commercial, stabs a ceiling fan while dressed as Don Quixote, tickles Jill’s hairy armpit in a “funny” seduction scene and finally gyrates spastically to an old Monkees tune.
Clearly the filmmakers (which, surprisingly, includes comedy great Robert Smigel) were trying to gently send up Pacino and his well-worn public persona, but nobody is quite sure how to do this, and Pacino is never quite comfortable making fun of himself so the whole endeavor winds up being uncomfortable and at times quasi cruel.
However, with that said, at least the bits with Pacino carry a vaguely entertaining vibe. Because everything that involves Jill is grimly unfunny. Part of the problem is the fact that Sandler keeps an ironic distance from the character. Jill is really never anything more than just a guy in a dress who says things like, “I gotta go make chocolate squirties” in one of Sandler’s stock silly voices. She’s a lazily constructed, ill-conceived character who is insulting, narrow minded and stupid and yet we’re supposed to be sympathetic when it’s revealed she doesn’t have any friends. Sandler’s Jill couldn’t carry a five minute “SNL” sketch let alone a 90-minute movie.
Like most of Sandler’s recent comedies, “Jack and Jill” carries a cold, calculated quality behind it as it shamelessly panders to the lowest common denominator possible. Granted, Sandler always made lowbrow comedies, but there was a time when he wasn’t afraid to subvert people’s expectations and didn’t lean this heavily on gags revolving around farting, people getting smacked in the face or the site of David Spade dressed as Snooki.
It’s disheartening to realize that Sandler’s real life films are now indistinguishable from the intentionally terrible comedies his character made in Judd Apatow’s “Funny People.”
Rating: No Ws
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