Jack is a highly successful director of television commercials. For Thanksgiving his outlandish twin sister Jill (Sandler, again) comes to visit. Despite efforts to get her to leave, matters get complicated when Jill catches the eye of famed actor Al Pacino, whom Jack needs to convince to star in a commercial… I guess. What Jack and Jill is really all about is Sandler’s effort to exact revenge against moviegoers.
Drag is not a good look for Sandler, and it should be no surprise that he is unfunny as a woman. The jokes featured in Jack and Jill have the range of an infant golfer. Committing to a viewing of Jack and Jill is almost a misogynist effort. All manners of humiliation beset Jill. She takes damage to the head, gets groped, has her skirt looked up, and if the sound is telling she may even have her bowels destroyed. Pure class, that Adam Sandler.
So not only is Jack and Jill an offensive PG comedy, it’s structurally broken. Jill appears on the scene way too fast, in under five minutes. No build up to her arrival, no clever use of music from The Cars —from what I can gather Sandler’s favorite band —for her reveal. Jill also has a tendency to run off into the woods, which at first is random. Lastly for what is billed as a holiday movie, Chanukah is glossed over through a montage and I’m not even sure how Thanksgiving lasted as long as a dinner scene.
It’s obvious that Pacino has no business being in this film, but what’s really at stake are the remains of Sandler’s reputation. If Sandler ever wonders why he can’t get an Oscar nomination, all he has to do is look back at the selfish decisions he has made. Jack and Jill is not a script, or even a concept, that deserves a read. It’s like a fake movie found within Funny People that was replaced with the more imaginative “Merman”. Yet, Sandler turned it into a movie that will surely pay him upfront over $20 million.
The awesome mess that is Jack and Jill is so wrought with issues that this reviewer can only stand to offer some bullet points for the lesser offenders. Katie Holmes is in this movie. David Spade is a better woman than Sandler. Jack has an adopted son whose entire bit is taping found objects onto his body.
The character of Al Pacino has a line that inadvertently summarizes Jack and Jill. After watching his cheesy song and dance number in a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial, Pacino turns to Jack and says, “This needs to be burned.” *
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