Film Reviews

8 Crazy Nights

• Director: Seth Kearsley
• Starring: Jon Lovitz
• Details: US / 76 mins / (12PG).

One of the strangest Christmas films in recent memory, Adam Sandler's 8 Crazy Nights is an animated musical which is depressingly limited in virtually every aspect. Davey Stone (voiced by the impossibly unfunny Sandler) is a former basketball star who is in last chance salon after another boozy evening ends up with him in front of the local judge. Faced with a serious amount of jail time should he step out of line again, Davey is forced to do community service with local basketball referee Whitey (also voiced by Sandler), a pathetic figure who lives with his twin sister Eleanor (Sandler). Over the following eight nights, Davey learns to face his own demons. Shamelessly ripping off every Christmas cliche in the book, 8 Crazy Nights would have been a terrible film had it just limited itself to below par animation, terrible plot and grossly unfunny gags. Throw Adam Sandler's depressingly loud shtick into the mix, however and you've got a film that's making a late challenge for the year's worst. Indeed, before 8 Crazy Nights, I simply disliked Adam Sandler immensely, believing him to be a loud but fairly harmless moron. After enduring 76 minutes of his brand of 'humour' (reindeers eating human faeces being the creative nadir) my dislike has grown to near pathological levels. One day Sandler, my boot and your head will meet, one day.

Review by Garreth Murphy