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I’m going to admit it, The Ridiculous 6 was pretty damn good… like Waterboy good
I just spent my Friday night playing the Netflix game… where you debate what you’re going to watch, secretly you know what you want to watch (The Ridiculous 6) but you’re terrified you’ll be disappointed; so you try to find something else and realize you’ve already watched all the good movies on Netflix, realize you have a blog about Netflix originals that would ultimately benefit from a review of the film… That’s a normal problem people have?
Well, let me put your minds at east…The Ridiculous 6 may have it’s share of painfully unfunny scenes but overall it was funnier than anything they’ve made over a decade. That may not be saying much considering their last good movie was Grandma’s Boy from 2006, and before that the last good Adam Sandler leading role was The Wedding Singer in 1998. After that it was a slew of either poorly cast serious roles or over the top comedies banking on the fact that Sandler was a child in an adults body. The problem was no one took into account that the older that body got, the more painful it was to see a once box office smash (insert Sandler style poop joke here).
I know, I know, get to the review… The reason I throw all this info at you is to explain to you that I’m not a loon when I say The Ridiculous 6 is the best Sandler film since Waterboy.
The film is a goofy Western where Sandler plays White Knife, a white boy who was raised by Native Americans. His biological father, the famous bank robber Frank Stockburn (Nick Nolte), visits White Knife to tell him he’s dying… and that he wanted to make good with his son by giving him the small fortune he’s accrued over his years. This is where all those now infamous tasteless Native American jokes came in. Just then, ex-partner to Frank (Danny Trejo) comes to claim his portion of the money, then takes Frank hostage and tells White Knife he’s got 10 days to get 50,000 dollars in exchange for his father’s life.
So we have our super simple premise of boy has no father, boy gets father, father gets taken, begin road trip, meet characters along the way, blah blah blah. It’s not a super dense story, but it’s better than Grown Ups storyline… that shouldn’t be a benchmark, should it? Either way you mix all that up with a beautifully shot film by a wicked talented DP and you’ve got yourself a film! I’m going to stop spoiling the story there, because that’s really not the reason you should watch the movie. The reason I say this movie was one of the best was because it brought back a tradition that got lost over the decades… Sandler being the lead who has a heart and a purpose, not being a 49 year old manboy making “zabadoo” noises. Yes, the entire film he has a harsh Native American accent that borderlines racist and “is that actually an accent or is he just talking quiet?” but you get past it real quickly.
Much like Waterboy, Sandler is fighting for something, he’s a man with a human sized hole in his heart and needs to fill it desperately. That goes for all the six leads in the film. They’re all boys who were raised without a father… the same father, because apparently Nick Nolte got around. Know what I’m sayin’?
Another thing that made the movie great were all the cameos from Sandler films past, Jon Lovitz, David Spade, Nick Swardson, Steve Buscemi, Steve Zahn, Rob Schneider and tons more… seriously. There are dozens. Not even mentioning the newcomers like Blake fucking Shelton, Vanilla Ice playing Mark Twain?! The thing that I appreciated was that all the characters got their really funny moment and (here’s the most important part) LEFT! They didn’t stick around for a few scenes just being there to beat a dead horse, they pulled a George Costanza and left on their biggest laugh! Thank you!
There’s always going to be your awful scenes… like the John Turturro scene where his character is “inventing” baseball… I won’t waste your time explaining that scene like that scene wasted my time going on for 10 minutes…
But seriously, can we get back to Vanilla Ice being Mark Twain for a second? As I was watching the movie, I was live tweeting my reactions… as I was getting mocked Mark Twain came on screen:
@JohnAHumphrey because @vanillaice plays Mark Twain and starts by saying “waddup”
— NowStreaming (@NowStreamingPod) December 12, 2015
It’s hard to hate a hip hop dancing philosopher.
By the time the film ended I was actually impressed, I was fully enchanted by all the characters and heart that went into this film that actually was able to pull a bunch of natural belly laughs out of a crotchety old comedy fan like me. There’s some great stuff in the film that every time it popped on screen I would smile, like Steve Zahn’s lazy eye…
I’m not saying you should cancel your Saturday night plans, but I ain’t saying you shouldn’t watch The Ridiculous Six either. You might actually find yourself falling back in love with Sandler for taking a step back and not trying to be the funniest person in the film. Keyword: Trying.
Speaking of trying, I won’t try to hard to convince you to watch it. I gave it 3 1/2 stars, that’s all I’m saying. This being the first of a four picture deal Sandler has with Netflix, I’m glad to say that I’ll be looking forward to the next one.
