Review: ‘Grown Ups’

Star cast: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, David Spade, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, Maya Rudolph

Plot: Five childhood friends, Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider, reunite after 30 years to attend the funeral of their beloved youth basketball coach over the Fourth of July weekend. With their wives and kids in tow, they all stay at the late coach’s lake house. Comedy ensues as they relive old times, tease each other and try to show their kids how to have fun the old-fashioned way.

What’s Good: The situational comedy; the gags; Rob Schneider’s and the child actors’ performances

What’s Bad: The patchy editing.

Verdict: Grown Ups is fun while it lasts. The film manages to tickles your funny bones just at the right times.

Loo Break: Only if there is an interval.

Grown Ups is a comedy of errors about a bunch of five childhood friends who reunite 30 years later on the occasion of the death of their beloved basketball coach. They have their wives and boisterous children in tow, and end up spending the Fourth of July weekend in fun and frolic.

The films begins with several phone calls being made to the five friends, Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider and David Spade, who all were a part of the dead coach’s treasured team. While Adam is a big Hollywood agent, his wife (Salma Hayek) is a high-street fashion designer. Their two young boys are huge on technology, so much so that they text their Chinese nanny if and when they want their hit chocolate! Aware that his kids are leading a life that will make them couch potatoes, Sandler comes up with an ingenious plan. He decides to make sure that his family spends time on the late coach’s lake house, come what may.

Here’s when the fun starts. It turns out that the wives and children of the five friends are equally eccentric. Sample this. While Kevin James’s wife still insists on breast-feeding her 4-year-old son, Rob Schneider is romancing an octogenarian and insists on being vocal about their kinky sex life! So, in between the five friends trying to relive their childhood and making their children reclaim their own, things get really muddled up. Promises are broken, habits are undone and out of nowhere, two sexy teens pop up!

All the gags work just right (story by Adam Sandler and Fred Wolf), and although the writers do use toilet humour and slapstick comedy quite a few times, their attempt passes muster every single time. Some people though, might find the poop, boob and naked jokes revolting!

The direction by Dennis Dugan is good, although patchy editing (Tom Costain) makes the film seem like a collection of gags.

The cast performs ably. Rob Schneider and the adorable child cast take the cake. The film is shot in beautiful locales and the camerawork (Theo van de Sande) is just fine.

All in all, Grown Ups makes for an easy and funny weekend watch. It should fare average at the ticket windows.

– By Mrigank Dhaniwala