Adam Sandler is Sonny Koufax, a 32-year-old unemployed law graduate whose girlfriend walks out on him. He decides to adopt a friend's child who lands up on his doorstep. His girlfriend is unmoved anyway so Sandler begins wooing his friend's sister-in-law Layla (Joey Lauren Adams). The movie strings together a series of gags and toilet jokes to narrate Sandler's experience in rearing the child before it ends up in a courtroom and high moral posturing over a custody battle for the kid. But where on earth does the unemployed Sandler get the money to splurge on the kid as he does throughout the film? Perhaps social security in the US is kinder than previously known.Sandler is frankly irritating. But guess who finds the movie really funny. It's Sandler's co-star Joey Lauren Adams who for some strange reason has this perennial smile plastered on her face. A reminder of the plight of co-stars who have little else to do in a custom-built star vehicle.
Rob Schneider, who brilliantly underplays his role of aRussian deliveryman and Sandler's friend, should've played the title role. It would've sent the film through the roof. On second thoughts, why make the film at all?
The film beats the Farelly brothers' Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary in the sheer volume of.., er, bodily fluids which both Sandler and the kid let flow on the slightest pretext.
The Farelly brothers' films were stupid, but unpretentious. Therein lay their appeal. Big Daddy's silliness is defeated by its pretentiousness and attempts to stick a halo around its unemployed good-for-nothing lead star. Witness the mushy courtroom scene of an unemployed Sandler promising to be a good father. Strictly for Adam Sandler fans.
Playing at Regal, Glamour, Movie Time
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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