Review of Grandmas Boy
Score: 65
Sub-Section: Comedy
Company: Fox
Date: Jul 18, 2006
Following in the footsteps of Dude, Where’s My Car? and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle is Grandma’s Boy, recently released on DVD in both the theatrical and an unrated version. Grandma’s Boy is a Happy Madison production. They are also responsible for most of Rob Schneider and Adam Sandler’s movies.
The premise of Grandma’s Boy: A 35 year old video game tester named Alex (co-writer Allen Covert) is booted from his apartment because his roommate is blowing all the rent money on hookers. After several attempts to find other places to stay, he takes up his grandmother’s offer and moves in with her and her two roommates. The plot doesn’t have to amount to much in movies like this, since the whole point is to move the movie along from one gag to another. Most of the gags in this movie involve smoking weed, masturbation, and sex with older women (really older).
Any fan of Adam Sandler’s movies will recognize the actors in Grandma’s Boy. Alex and his best friend Dante (Peter Dante) are Sandler movie regulars. Saturday Night Live alumni round out the cast, including Kevin Nealon, David Spade, and Rob Schneider. Alex’s Grandma is played by Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond). Her roommates are Shirley Jones (The Partridge Family) and veteran stage actress Shirley Knight. I don’t know what made these respected actresses take these roles, but luckily they escaped without much harm done to their reputation.
Grandma's Boy did miserably in the box office and is hoping to find new life on DVD. It has the ingredients of a cult movie and could become popular like Zoolander and The Big Lebowski. The jokes are hit and miss, but some of them are real winners. If you fancy absurd gross-out humor, this is the film for you. The only thing that may hold it back from becoming a cult classic is the lack of memorable quotes. It is overly humorous, but when I think back on the movie, I don’t recall specific funny quotes. These are needed to get word of mouth spreading and worked well for Napoleon Dynamite (“Friggin’ Idiot!”) and Old School (“You’re my boy, Blue!”).
As an actor, Allen Covert has a difficult time holding down the leading role. He is mediocre even in a comedy where acting isn’t expected to be anywhere near oscar-worthy. He is heavily outshone by the other leads: Doris Roberts, Linda Cardellini (his boss), and Joel Moore (a video game designer and source of some of the best lines and scenes). Prehaps the best performance goes to Alex’s friend Jeff (co-writer Nick Swardson), a video game tester who still lives with his parents, collects toys, and sleeps in a race car bed. His comic timing is spot on in every scene he’s in and he gets to make whoopee with Ma Partridge.
A main plot point of involves Alex smoking a lot of weed. His boss smokes weed, his friends smoke weed. He gets so stoned that a chimpanzee named Monkey drives him to work. This humor prevades much of the movie and you either like drug jokes or you don't, so if you happen not to I would avoid this movie.
Grandma’s Boy is not a masterpiece and is sub-par even in the sophomoric comedy genre, but it has it’s moments. It will probably be a big hit with the stoners and video game geeks, but anyone else might want to wait until it shows up on cable.
Other related links:
Grandma's Boy Trailer at Apple.com
Grandma's Boy at IMDB.com
To visit the official website at GrandmasBoyMovie.com.