YES!!! Adam Sandler is back in theaters again, WOO-HOO!!! In case you haven't noticed I am an Adam Sandler fan, and like all my other contemporaries, I have been waiting for The Waterboy dilegently since I heard about it. It is great to see Adam (do you mind if I call him Adam) back in his normal movie. Not that I am knocking The Wedding Singer, in fact I loved it, but that is not a typical Adam Sandler movie. The Waterboy delivers on what all you Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore addicts out there have been waiting for.
Bobby Boucher still provides some high quality H2O
This time Sandler is Bobby Boucher (BOO-Shea), a lovable, yet dumb and socially inept 31 year old waterboy for the University of Lousiana football team. Now, Bobby may be a freak with an obsession with good old "high quality H2O," but he is also damn good at what he does. That doesn't stop coach Red Beaulieu (Jerry Reed) from firing him just because he doesn't like him. Crushed by his new unemployment, Bobby travels to South Central Lousiana State University (SCLSU), whose miserable program is headed by Coach Klein (Henry Winkler), looking for a new waterboy job. Klein allows Bobby to refresh his team and also encourages him to stick up for himself when the players make fun of him. Finally Bobby snaps and unleahes all his pent up fury and lays one of the most viscious tackles in football history on the quarterback. Coach Klein then tries to convince Bobby and his mother (Kathy Bates) that he should play football for him. Momma disagrees but Bobby likes the idea of becoming a college man and not being thought of as stupid anymore, so he goes behind his momma's back and agrees. Football goes great for him, but classes don't. At one point one of his professors (who has snow white hair and a goatee to match) insults his momma (a cardinal sin to Bobby), to which he says "No Colonel Sanders, you're wrong" and promptly tackles the prof. in the middle of class. Despite his lack of social skills, Bobby is a natural at football. He single handedly turns the Mud Dogs season from their usual unvictorious humiliations, to complete dominance all because no team can score on Bobby. Predictably, SCLSU goes to a bowl game where they face (you guessed it) Lousiana and coach Red.
Coach Kline (Henry Winkler) and his star player, The Waterboy (Adam Sandler)
This movie has a lot going for it. It has Sandler's usual comedy, complete with the lisping hero who isn't all that bright. It has a ton of cameos from Rob Schneider as a redneck, cajun hillbilly to Bill Cower and Jimmy Johnson. It has some good special effects showing Bobby imagining the heads of people who made fun of him on the bodies of all the opposing players. It also has football, which to me makes it worthy of an Oscar (just kidding, sort of). It even has a healty dose of comedy directed at the South (mainly the swamp dwellin' inhabitants of the Louisiana Bayou). To be quite honest, if you are looking for a movie that will make you laugh, and laugh, and laugh and that's all, then The Waterboy is the perfect film for you. A lot of reviews I have read say they are dissappointed that Sandler returned to this type of movie after he proved that he could be a leading man in The Wedding Singer, but I am glad he did it. Sure, Sandler is a talent actor in general, but his strong suit is comedy... and not subtle, romantic comedy... I'm talking in your face comedy. I respect anyone who goes back to what they know they are good at, and then delivers. And that is exactly what Adam Sandler did in The Waterboy
