Cast is best part of ‘Chuck and Larry’

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry is another Happy Madison production brought to the big screen.

Chuck and Larry is about two firefighters that have a gay relationship and go to a mountain to….wait, that’s not it. In this film, two straight firefighters Chuck (Adam Sandler) and Larry (Kevin James) are best of friends. Chuck is a successful man-whore who has tons of women wrapped around his finger due to his calender success as Mr. February. Larry recently suffered a great loss when his wife died and he was left with two kids.

Due to the loss of Larry’s wife, his pension goes only to him and not his children. The solution? The two friends get married in order for Larry’s pension to cover his children if something should ever happen to him while on the job. Chuck is the only person Larry can trust so Larry’s only partner at work to becomes his partner in marriage.

There have been several scathing reviews of the film. In the most popular link from digg.com, the review is titled “I Now Pronounce You Stereotypical and Racist”. Let me first say that all of the actors have nothing to do with the script! All content from the movie was written by three completely different people so don’t blame Happy Madison or the cast for the content. The review also claims that most of the story may have plagiarized a film with Paul Hogan.

What Worked– The cast of this film was amazing. Who doesn’t like the Happy Madison Crew: Adam Sandler, Nick Swardson, Peter Dante, Allen Covert, etc.? Jessica Biel was an excellent choice and Ving Rames finally replaces Terry Crews (who plays characters like this one in films like White Chicks or on CW’s “Everybody Hates Chris”) comes through with an outstanding, disturbing, hilarious role. The movie even had the great cameos from Rob Scheider and David Spade (“I’m on fire put me out!”) that you can expect from a Happy Madison production. Lance Bass, Rachel Dratch, Dave Matthews (who is really funny), Rob Corddry, Robert Smigel, and Blake Clark also make appearances.

I thought the concept was great and worked. You felt the characters come alive. The whole movie contained a purpose much greater than just fulfilling the stereotypes. In doing that, they created the message that hating and alienating someone because of their sexual preference is wrong. The scene outside of the costume party is a good example. Chuck and Larry shows that comedy is the only way to view a serious matter because you can laugh off your stress or tension.

But that’s not the only reason I liked it.

How could I not talk about Swardson’s character?! After seeing his sophomore performance for Happy Madison I think he deserves a leading role!! . Making him Biel’s brother was the best choice in the whole movie.

What Didn’t Work– Of course a message this powerful did kill the comedic mood at times. Just like Click, Chuck and Larry turns a happy story upside down. There was an excessive amount of dramatic acting from James (which is a little to much for my blood).

I also think they didn’t fully utilize the great cast and cameo performances. Schneider was practically given one joke for the whole movie, and that’s just not fair.

There were also some poor choices in terms of plot. Larry’s son being gay and the parallel with the tomboy daughter was a bit of an obvious choice.

Verdict– Happy Madison made a new “dramedy” based on someone else’s script. All of the actors where strong and entertaining and we got to see Biel in her underwear. I loved Swardson in glitter & butterfly wings and Spade in a seductive fire-shim (she + him = shim) outfit.

Sadly, there will never be another low-brow Sandler film like Billy Madison because everyone has to face that Sandler is an adult now. These days, he chooses dramatic roles instead of scripts that have children peeing in their pants.

Still, Chuck and Larry had a great message that is relevant to the times and gave that message in a comedic style with non-stop laughs.

4 out 5.