#43 Going Overboard (1989) (Colin)

Cast: Adam Sandler, Burt Young, Scott LaRose, Lisa Collins, Billy Bob Thornton, Billy Zone

Director: Valerie Brieman

Genre: Comedy

The next movie on our list stars Adam Sandler, which was a big surprise to me. Not so much that he is on the list, but that it’s taken so long for one of his movies to appear!

Don’t get me wrong, I actually like quite a lot of Sandler’s movies. Happy Gilmore (1996) is to this day one of my favourite comedies of all time. But I have also found other movies such as The Waterboy (1998) and The Wedding Singer (1998) to be laugh out loud funny; heck I even enjoyed the slightly less slapstick, but very enjoyable 50 First Dates (2004) with Drew Barrymore. The problem however, is that for every Happy Gilmore, you have 10 Little Nicky(s)!

When Sandler gets it right, his movies can be funny, clever and heartwarming, however, when he gets it wrong they can be humourless, flat and dull. So when our next movie, Going Overboard appeared on this list I did start to worry. Was this another Happy Gilmore or were we in for a Jack and Jill?

Going Overboard is a movie inside a movie. We are watching a film which General Noriega, (Burt Young), is watching and is a movie made by a film crew who are following Shecky Moskowitz, a young comedian trying to break into the big time. (It all sounds very complicated and clever, but it’s not, please bear with me).

Shecky works on the cruise ships as a glorified lacky and is desperate to be the ship’s comedian. That position, unfortunately, is already filled by Dickie Diamond, (LaRose), a popular figure, (absolutely no idea why, he doesn’t manage to crack a funny gag all movie), whose spot is very established.

However, Shecky does gets his chance when Dickie wakes one morning to feel a bit, well, dickie! Stumbling around on deck, he loses his hat which falls in the sea and he makes a bee-line for the toilet. After making some disgusting noises, he realises he has locked himself in the loo and is trapped! The rest of the crew, worried where their unfunny clown has disappeared to, spot his hat in the sea and thinks he has gone overboard and drowned. Shecky is then promoted to ship's comedian.

Whilst all this drama is going on, there are several beauty pageant contestants on board who are giving vox pops to the camera. One contestant, Miss Australia, decides to use her time to slag off General Noriega, which, as he is watching this movie, hears and takes great offence to. He sends 2 more idiots to the ship, loaded with machine guns and with strict orders to take Miss Australia out, (as in kill, not date).

Will Shecky's routine get any better? Who will save Miss Australia? And will someone, anyone, in the entire movie tell a decent joke?

The answer to the last question is sadly, no.

Now comes the point of my blog where I would normally review the movie, but dear reader, this is going to be extremely difficult as there is really not a lot to talk about.  Going Overboard is just a 90 minute bunch of nothing.

We are told from the off that this is a budget movie and they are not kidding.  Filmed with what appears to be one camera, (Fisher Price’s My First Camera), and a microphone which used to be a dog’s chew toy, Going Overboard really does have a budget feel.  This is not necessarily a bad thing of course, budget movies such as Blair Witch Project (1999), Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Mad Max (1979), were fantastic movies and rightly went on to become very successful, but the difference is they feel like proper movies, Going Overboard feels like a proper mess.

Those other budget movies also had a script, which is very important.  This movie has Adam Sandler standing in front of a camera, gurning and talking bollocks for 90 mins, (actually a bit like Blair Witch then....).  His narration usually makes no sense and appears to be designed to sound intelligent and witty but often is jumbled and confused.  Unfortunately the storyline can not come to Sandler’s rescue as the plot is so thin that you can put it over a comb to make an inexpensive kazoo.

As for Sandler himself, well this movie just feels like an audition tape.  He tries acting, it doesn’t work.  He tries delivering clever lines, it doesn’t work.  He tries displaying emotion and showing range, it doesn’t work.  The only surprising thing about Sandler’s performance is that some studio thought, ‘Hey, that guy’s good’, and promptly threw movies at him and made him a multi-millionaire.  When you think about it logically, it doesn’t work.

The other thing that doesn’t work in this movie are the jokes.  Absolutely not one single joke hits the mark, in fact they were so far off the mark that they startled a snoozing lion in Botswana.  But one thing this movie does have is irony, in abundance!  It is ironic that a movie which contains not 1 but 2 comedians who constantly tell gags, does not contain 1 single gag throughout the entire movie!  I am trying to think of 1 joke I can share with you just to prove my point, but I can’t, that’s how memorable they were.  This movie makes Michael McIntyre look like Bill Hicks!

So who on earth is to blame for this movie?  These days Sandler writes, directs, stars and makes the tea in his films and so you can quite confidently lay the blame at his feet when another (Sandler movie) flops spectacularly at the box office.  However, for once he is not to blame.  The blame lies solely with director and writer, Valerie Brieman.

I actually get the feeling that rather than this movie being an audition for Adam Sandler, it’s actually an audition for Valerie Brieman.  She is desperate to show the world that she can produce a top quality movie on a tight budget……she can’t.  She wants to show the world she can write funny material…….she can’t.  She even gives herself a small part in the movie to show the world she can act…….she can’t.

Her part in the movie involves snogging the face of a ‘rock star’ from a band called ‘Yellow Teeth’, (cos he’s British, geddit?!?!) and is pure cringeworthy.  It reminds me of a segment called ‘The Hopefuls’ on Channel 4’s 90’s anarchic TV show, ‘The Word’.  If you haven’t seen it, the idea is basically that people will do absolutely anything to get on TV and have their 15 minutes, (to give you some examples, one person licks sweat of a fat man, one drinks his own vomit and one lucky chap snogs an old granny, tongues and all).

Valerie is another ‘Hopeful’ who desperately wants to be famous and will, it appears, do anything.  This does not seem to have worked however and she has only made a few movies since.  They seem to come around every 12 years and the good news is that the last movie was in 2012, so you have plenty of time to prepare yourself for the next pigswill on offer.

So was this Happy Gilmore or Jack and Jill?  Without a doubt Jack and Jill, Little Nicky and Grown Ups 2 all rolled into one mass crapball!

This movie can only really appeal to die hard Adam Sandler fans and only for the reason that this is Sandler’s debut film.  But as soon as they get the idea of what his performance was like, I am pretty sure they will abandon ship.