Film Reviews

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

• Rating:
• Director: Dennis Dugan.
• Starring: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Jessica Biel, Steve Buscemi.
• Details: US / 110mins (15A).

Fireman Larry Valentine (James) is in a pickle because he's having problems reassigning insurance benefits to his children after his wife's death. When he saves the life of fellow firefighter Chuck Levine (Sandler), Larry asks Chuck to pretend to be his gay partner to ensure his children's security. Larry and Chuck marry in Canada, but their relationship comes under scrutiny by fraud investigator Clinton (Buscemi) and ladies' man Chuck finds it hard (pun intended) to keep up (pun intended) the charade when sexy lawyer Alex (Biel) takes their case. All the jokes, as you'd expect, riff on two straight guys pretending they're gay, and there's only so much you can do with that before it runs stale. Unfortunately for Benchwarmers director Dennis Dugan, the gags run out of steam earlier than he expected. There is the odd line that borders on the amusing - "I'm Catholic and I don't want to piss Mel Gibson off" and a headline that proclaims 'Gay basher bashed at gay bash' - but when the majority are silly, Carry On-esque schoolboy puns - "We really pulled this out of our asses" - and mistaking Larry's oversized underpants for a dish cloth, it's hard to believe that the screenwriters have Sideways on their CV. It does make a half-assed (pun not intended) attempt at saying that gay people are still people, 'faggot' is a bad word and the old why-can't-we-all-get-along message makes an appearance. I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry is by no means terrible, it's just terribly old.

Review by Gavin Burke