THE BENCHWARMERS
By
Victoria Alexander
FilmsInReview.com

My weekly column, "The Devil's Hammer," appears every Monday on FromTheBalcony.com.

Adam Sandler, would you be my best friend? I want to star in movies. I'm too old to start a career and have no talent, but why should we let that stand in my way?

Sandler has single-handedly, ruthlessly I might add, given Rob Schneider a film career. (Yes, as my vicious fans keep reminding me, I liked "The Animal.") Sandler is so devoted to Schneider that he gives him 6 foot tall former model Molly Sims as his wife in "The Benchwarmers." And, to boot, Sandler hires David Spade as a snarling buffoon with a page-boy wig. To insure that these 45 year old guys appeal to a young audience, Happy Madison adds "Napoleon Dynamite's" Jon Heder as a nose-picking newspaper boy as their buddy.

Are you laughing yet?

Gus (Schneider) has a lawn mowing business and a gorgeous wife. How did he hoodwink her? But Gus would rather be out with his buddies instead of making babies. His best friends are Richie (Spade), a video store clerk, and Clark (Heder), who has a paper route and lives with his mother. Richie's younger brother is very old and lives in a closet. Hilariously, he also wears a page-boy wig. When they see a fat kid get beat up and farted on, they decide to take on the bullies in a game of baseball. What fat kid, whose dad is a billionaire (Jon Lovitz), is the butt of abuse?

What billionaire doesn't invite the bullies and their families to his mansion and woo them with luxuries into loving his son?

Gus has enormous baseball ability but he must play alone, since Richie and Clark are afraid of flying balls.

We can now assume the following: Sandler's production company, Happy Madison, knows nothing about comedy and neither does Jon Heder. The real nerd being bullied here is Heder who has sacrificed his loyal fan base for a paycheck. (To make any money, "The Benchwarmers" must have had a tiny budget and paid these guys with craft services.) How could the guy who created a sublime character called Napoleon Dynamite agree to this script? Schneider and Spade have no integrity. They want to be in movies and they have powerful friends. We can't blame them.

Schneider and Spade are just too old to be hanging around a baseball field and challenging kids %u2013 even if they are bullies. Parents should be doing that. The script is thrown together without any respect for the audience. Obviously, Schneider and Spade have no interest in developing a clever, funny movie.

Victoria Alexander answers every email and can be contacted by visiting www.FilmsInReview.com or, directly, at masauu@aol.com