Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo ... Worst Movie Ever

By Wes Saylors

Editor’s note: Jeff Eason is on vacation. Wes Saylors is guest reviewer for this week’s movie.

Adam Sandler is responsible for so much that is awful in movies (and, I suspect, the world) I know that when I see his name on a marquee I will head for the library to reacquaint myself with the printed word. It is a good system. I have never accidentally stumbled into an Adam Sandler movie, thinking it to be something else, like Life is Beautiful Two. I steer clear.

But there is a problem.

Rob Schneider and Eddie Griffin star in Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.

Adam Sandler has a production company called Happy Madison Productions. This is the same think tank that has decided to let people like David Spade, Norm MacDonald and the late Chris Farley make movies. The system I use works the same. If I see any of these guys on a poster I know the movie will not only be unfunny to anyone not raised by wolves in the wild but that Adam Sandler will make a cameo. I do believe the one thing I like less than an Adam Sandler movie is a movie starring David Spade wherein Adam Sandler shows up just to add his two cents of comedy to the mix. Yikes isn’t the word I’m looking for, but it’s the one that is printable. Adam Sandler will have a lot of explaining to do in comedy heaven. And the movie he’ll have to do the most explaining about is the dismal Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. For you see, while Adam Sandler is not in this movie, his production company is responsible for it.

This movie is awful.

As I sat in the theater thinking, “Well …there goes seven dollars I could have used to throw aimlessly out the window of a speeding car” I tried to imagine the thinking process behind a movie like European Gigolo. While its star (did you see that? I said star) Rob Schneider is held responsible for the writing, this movie has the kind of stink that could only come from people like Sandler and MacDonald helping out on the script. This movie is for people who haven’t yet graduated to the nuances and shadings of a Three Stooges short. The main comic vehicle seems to be the use of the phrase “man-whore”. No kidding. This phrase gets tossed around a lot. I’m sure it is funny to Rob Schneider and Adam Sandler (as is the game Pull My Finger), but it just isn’t funny to people who don’t get paid twenty million dollars to do crummy voices and then center movies around them (like, say, Adam Sandler).

And this is a shame, because the first Deuce Bigalow movie was actually kind of a sweet and funny surprise when it came out six year ago. Rob Schneider, himself, is sort of a comic blank slate, and so it is crucial that he has good material built around him. Such was the case with the first Deuce movie. Deuce was a sweet sad sack who became a … well, man-whore, for financial reasons. In the process, though, he helped a lot of sweet and lonely women and discovered that nothing really replaces having someone just listen to you and accept you. It was funny and maybe even a little heart-warming.

I don’t demand that a movie have a meaningful message. If the first Deuce movie had one, fine. But a comedy should be funny to more than just the three or four dorks who sat around and made each other laugh with ideas like having a woman who was born with a male appendage on her face where her nose should be. There is also the woman who spews wine on Deuce. She spews it from the opening in her throat normally reserved for the voice box she must use. And of course, there is the obligatory little person scene (I believe this one is wearing a sailor suite). Deuce is once again a gigolo in this movie, but this time he is a gigolo in Amsterdam. What did Amsterdam do to deserve Rob Schneider and Adam Sandler?

There is a brief aside to how the Europeans view Americans in the wake of President Bush. Supposedly, Europeans hate George Bush. But that’s not true. Europeans hate Adam Sandler. Or they should.

European Gigolo is a cynical exercise in letting the inmates run the funny farm. It looks as if no rules or control were exercised over the Happy Madison Production group…simply several guys in the throes of arrested development, playing away, making each other laugh, and then me, thousands of miles away, plunking down seven dollars and watching the end result. It wasn’t funny. It was just awful. It was really, really awful.

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo is currently playing at Regal Cinemas and is rated R for profanity, crude humor, sexual situations, nudity, and the kind of stupidity that will one day be outlawed by clear-thinking and upright citizens.