Mr. Deeds - The Mini-Review

Well, where do I begin? To be honest I was prepared to hate this movie. I haven't liked much of Adam Sandler's work since Happy Gilmore and this was more of the same. And while I didn't hate this movie, it's not good either. I think I would have liked it a lot less if I hadn't seen the orignal first. Let me explain.

Just like the original, Mr. Deeds begins with the quaint town of Mandrake Falls. There, Longfellow Deeds lives a basic but happy life, in this case running a pizza restaurant. He is visited by some big city lawyers. His uncle has died unexpectedly, making Deeds (which he is referred to in this version) the sole heir to the empire his uncle has built. Like the the original movie before it, Deeds goes to the big city to see just what this all means, where he gets wrapped up in the petty motivations of everyone around him.

They stick pretty close to the original in this version, straying only occasionally to set up silly (and unfunny) comic moments. In the end, they forego an "insanity hearing" for Deeds in favor of a much more believable stock holder meeting, where a vote must be made, yes or no, to dissolve the business in the name of making a profit. In this case, Deeds argues more the value of dreams and the concept of happiness without money-grubbing than the benefit of being different. Even with these changes new scene is still admirable in it's intended message.

Mr. Deeds doesn't work for a number of reasons. It did have good intentions, you can see they have a love for the original, some of the original's best scenes are left intact here. But one of the major reasons it fails is that it decided to be a pure comedy. A comedy that isn't funny. This version lacks the heart that was present in the original and tries to fill that void with a large volume of jokes that never really pan out. Maybe the gags looked good on the page but didn't translate to the screen.

Can you blame the actors? Partially, while there were a plenty of good actors in this film, many of them seemed to be phoning this one in. The real reason has to be the writing, however.

Like I said, Mr. Deeds gets credit for the attempt but the recipe used to create the film just didn't work. I've argued that Adam Sandler has had free reign in his film to his detriment. This movie was populated by actors (and some characters) from the Adam Sandler "universe", and they just didn't get it done here. With a different cast and some funnier jokes, this could have been a much better.