Eight Crazy Nights
Release year: 2002
My Rating: ★½ out of 5
Tagline: The ultimate battle between Naughty and Nice.
Synopsis: Davey Stone, a 33-year old party animal, finds himself in trouble with the law after his wild ways go too far.
I just have so much to say. This movie is fascinating. And terrible. But I don't outright hate it. What a strange piece of media.
Here we have Adam Sandler's first animated movie. And by god, it sure is an animated Sandler movie. And somehow this is what happened when you combine some of the worst most disgusting jokes with the beautiful work of many animators who worked on the Iron Giant.
I'm trying so hard to write this right now, but I'm at such a loss for words. This movie is just so much. Like I think I could write a whole novel about this movie. And the more I find out about it, the weirder it gets.
This movie was also a significant financial bomb. That isn't surprising at all to me because I have no idea who this movie is for. Like, I feel like the appeal of most Adam Sandler movies is that there are jokes that work for all ages, and especially there's a lot for the kids to really like. And that could work here especially since it's an animated movie. But the plot is so boring and not really kid friendly because Sandler's character is an alcoholic trying to find some sort of Hanukkah spirit and kindness I guess. And there's so many jokes that a kid would never understand (doesn't mean they're funny!), and I feel like it's trying to be way too adult and crude for any child to watch. But yet, no adult in their right mind would find these jokes funny. Joke after joke just makes you uncomfortable. What is this freaking movie?
Sandler plays 3 of the major characters in this movie. His self-insert character is just your run of the mill asshole, standard for Sandler movies, but not rootable in the slightest. Then we have the character's Whitey, the local old man basketball coach trying to fix Sandler’s grinchy ways, and his sister, Eleanor. These probably are the best characters in the movie. I have no idea if I like Whitey's voice, but I think over the course of the movie I developed some sort of Stockholm Syndrome ironic enjoyment that kinda made me laugh every time he talked. I think I was laughing out of going insane. And then Whitey's sister's voice is actually pretty impressive.
There is a highlight of this movie and that is the songs. Yes this is a musical, and somehow Sandler and musical numbers just get me. The two favorites are Technical Foul and Bum-Biddy. Technical Foul has some of that ironic enjoyment for sure because Whitey is singing it, but I genuinely had fun with it. And every once in a while "Thaaaaaat's a technical foul!" will just pop into my head. And then Bum-Biddy is just hilarious. This movie would be probably among the worst Sandler movies if it weren't for these two songs.
And that is for so many reasons. There's the most boring love interest storyline. There's Rob Schnieder playing a very racist stereotype of a Chinese man. There's the whole Whitey getting covered in Portapotty waste and then a group of deer eating it off of him. There's transphobia. This movie is just so gross. It really feels like the most childish movie trying to be the most adult movie.
I can't take this anymore. I need to move on. I think I'm going insane just thinking about this movie, because it just takes me back to watching it, being so baffled by what I was even witnessing. I don't know man. Maybe everyone needs to watch this movie once in their lifetime. It's an out of body experience.
*Edit: Wait this movie is only 76 minutes?!
