Rashid Irani's Review: Grown Ups

Funnyman Adam Sandler’s career takes a further nosedive with this mishmash of slapstick, sentiment and gross gags. He portrays a Hollywood agent who reunites with four childhood friends after 30 years. Read on...

Grown Ups

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Cast:

Adam Sandler, Salma Hayek

Direction:

Dennis Dugan

Rating:

1 and half

Funnyman Adam Sandler’s career takes a further nosedive with this mishmash of slapstick, sentiment and gross gags. He portrays a Hollywood agent who reunites with four childhood friends after 30 years.

The quintet meets for the funeral of their school basketball coach. They spend the weekend at the lake house where they had once celebrated a championship victory, reliving memories and realising that not much has changed over the decades.

Loosely structured, the screenplay is cluttered with dumbed-down situations involving the pals’ spouses and children. All the characters, without exception, are broad caricatures.

Jokes which are not even funny the first time around are recycled several times. Offensively, goofy geriatrics, obese children and pregnant women are targeted for mockery.

The cast is uniformly mediocre. Even worse, there’s a dreadful cameo by the normally bankable Steve Buscemi that only accentuates how unfunny Grown Ups really is.