I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007)

Written by Alexander Payne (!?) & Jim Taylor and Barry Fanaro
Directed by Dennis Dugan

With the exception of National Security, I like all of Dennis Dugan's movies. Even the lame brained ones, like The Benchwarmers, I find something to laugh at in, and they usually end with me not regretting watching them. But to say Adam Sandler's comedy output has been stellar the past few years is to lie. I was also apprehensive about checking this out, because while Adam has a track record for making kind hearted movies, he's never been the most tolerant or sophisticated character in his movies, so I was half-expecting this to be a completely offensive movie.

Turns out I'm wrong sometimes, and that's a good thing. I'm a fan of Kevin James, and I love Sandler's supporting casts (Allen Covert, Peter Dante, Nick Swardson, Rob Schneider [sometimes] David Spade, and Buscemi) and as it turns out, he added a couple more great actors to the ensemble this time with Ving Rhames and Dan Akroyd. I'm pretty sure everyone here knows the story, two firefighters get married so one of them can be sure his kids will get his pension if he were to die in his dangerous line of work, and since their relationship isn't real people are right to be suspect. So they lie even further to convince everyone they're real gay men, all the while one of them falls in love with a woman and the other confronts his difficulties of dealing with his dead wife.

The script managed to surprise me slightly with some of the gags, but mostly with the treatment of the subject at hand, teaching tolerance to the most incongruent pair since the Odd Couple, and in turn the teenagers that paid to see this movie. It doesn't hold many surprises, but it was a worthwhile way to spend an afternoon when I had nothing better to do. While I'm convinced every good thing in this movie came from the mind of Alexander Payne (which I can't prove, but c'mon) the movie is capably directed by Dugan, who as usual has something for everyone that comes to the movie, which is exactly what big budget studio comedies are all about. So it works on those levels, and if you're sitting watching this movie you aren't expecting anything more I suppose. Basically, this movie does its job. I'm just glad I didn't pay anything to see it.

6/10