Review: Jack and Jill

(The following is an open letter to Al Pacino.)

Dear Al,

At this stage in your long and celebrated career, I'm sure you have your pick of great roles. After all, you are one of the finest actors in the history of American cinema. You are widely revered Hollywood royalty, and the world of film is your oyster.

So, in light of your place in the pantheon of cinematic deities, I must ask you why you found it necessary, desirable, or somehow advantageous to star in a "film" (please note the use of quotes to indicate sarcasm) that undoubtedly will hasten the downfall of Western culture.

I am referring, of course, to Adam Sandler's latest assault on all that is good and decent about movies, Jack and Jill.

Before I go on, let's review Sandler's generally miserable track record: one aberrantly high-quality film that was a critical darling and thus a commercial flop (Punch-Drunk Love), a few lowbrow but not quite insultingly stupid comedies (The Wedding Singer comes to mind), and countless exercises in complete unmitigated idiocy (there are so many, but a fine example is I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry; also, refer to my scathing and cathartic review of Grown Ups).

So really now, Al: Considering HappyNickyMadisonWaterboy's cinematic trail of tears, what were you thinking? What possessed you to star -- yes, star, for your presence is no mere cameo -- in Sandler's latest embarrassingly inept attempt at comedy? Did you not read the script? Did you not realize that Jack and Jill never rises above a level of alleged humor at which Mexican food-based diarrhea is referred to as a case of "chimichanga bombs"?

To be fair, I'll assume that at the pre-production stage, Jack and Jill may not have seemed entirely stupid. When pitched to you, it could have sounded like a cleverly absurd story: Sandler plays advertising executive and devoted, demographically friendly family man Jack Sadelstein, whose needy, unlovely and pitiable twin sister, Jill (also played by Sandler), comes to visit for Thanksgiving. Jack desperately wants to hire you, the great Al Pacino, to appear in a TV commercial for a coffee drink, so he stalks you at a Lakers game with Jill in tow. You are immediately smitten with Jill and spend the rest of the film desperately courting her. In fact, you're so madly in love with her that you offer to do the commercial if Jack will help you sweep Jill off her feet. He does, and hilarious hijinks ensue.

Maybe you thought hey, this bizarre scenario sounds just crazy enough to be hysterically funny! You know -- Sandler could do the Tootsie thing. (Okay, maybe not Tootsie -- that was one of Dustin Hoffman's finest hours, after all. Maybe something less iconic, like Mrs. Doubtfire?) And you could let your hair down a little, reminding your fans that the megawatt movie icon who played Michael Corleone and Serpico doesn't take himself too seriously. You could show everyone that Al Pacino is humble and confident enough to engage in a bit of silly self-parody.

Yeah, Al, I'm sure you thought that with the right mix of good scripting, good direction and comic timing, Jack and Jill really could work.

But as we both know, it doesn't. It so doesn't. Oy. Ouch. Yikes. Yeesh. Gah, and just…wow. There simply are no words.

On a more positive note, I must give you credit for gamely trying to salvage this execrable mess of a movie. You did your best with the clunky, painfully unfunny dialogue, hoping your unparalleled acting chops could save such lines as, "Your sister and I grew up on the same streets. When I look at her, I see me." You also tried to lend a smidgeon of dignity to the proceedings by appearing in a Shakespearean play within the movie, blessing the audience with a fleeting moment of actual humor -- and getting in a jab at Los Angeles's shallow culture -- when you pointed out Bruce Jenner's cameo in the play.

I also commend you for playing along with the whole Man of La Mancha gag, gamely appearing in costume as Don Quixote, referring to Jill as Dulcinea, tilting at a ceiling fan and dreaming the impossible dream that such an oddball literary aside would connect with the film's target audience of, ahem, Adam Sandler fans. (Actually, it almost did. At the screening I attended, a few audience members apparently had heard of Don Quixote -- miracles never cease -- and responded with mild chuckles, as if they sort of got the joke. Or maybe they just thought you looked funny dressed as a knight. By way of contrast, the audience laughed uproariously at every fart joke, mean-spirited insult and pratfall in the movie. Such behavior is why film critics tend to take a very dim view of humanity; when audiences laugh at jokes about obesity and poop, we seriously consider giving up our careers and spending the rest of our days  sitting on our front porches, drinking cheap, canned, non-elitist beer and serenely waiting for society's inevitable collapse.)

But I digress. Anyway, I also won't blame you for Jack and Jill's thoroughly offensive stereotyping of Hispanics. You are not in -- and therefore possibly not even aware of -- the scene at the Sadelsteins' gardener's Giant Stereotypical Mexican Family Picnic, where half the characters are named José (or Beto or Chuy or something; I was too incredulous to remember), and toothless Grandma gleefully gums hot peppers, because, you know, Mexicans love hot peppers. If you happen to know how Sandler gets away with such grotesquely racist mockery without being banished from the entertainment industry, please tell me.

In addition, I'm sure it's not your fault that pretty much every female character in Jack and Jill is nothing more than a nubile prop. And it wasn't your decision to thoroughly waste Katie Holmes's underrated talent in the pointless role of Jack's wife Erin, who spends most of her screentime looking horrified at her husband and sister-in-law's nonsensical antics (or perhaps horrified because she's in such an unfathomably moronic movie).

So no, Al, I don't blame you for the limitless depth and breadth of Jack and Jill's dunderheaded fatuousness and fatuous dunderheadedness. But I'm nonetheless mystified as to why you didn't see enough red flags to bail out after, oh, an hour or two of filming. Contractual obligations, maybe? C'mon, you're Al Effing Pacino! I'm sure your people could have negotiated with Sandler's people and found you a not overly expensive way out. The producers easily could have found a suitable replacement; they could have offered your role to any of the many celebrities (Regis Philbin, Christie Brinkley, John McEnroe, Subway sandwich spokesman Jared Fogle) who clutter Jack and Jill with their wasted cameos and probably had no idea what they were getting into.

At risk of redundancy, I'll close by again asking why -- for the love of god, why? -- you're in a movie so jaw-droppingly abominable that critics nationwide are consulting their thesauruses, because it's hard to think of enough derogatory adjectives to adequately condemn it. It just makes no sense, Al. You're still on top of the mountain, and there is no need for your career to jump the shark in such a spectacularly dimwitted fashion.

Please don't tell me that De Niro dared you to do it, either. He's a better friend than that.

Sincerely,

Don Clinchy