The Waterboy

An agreeable yet forgettable comedy, The Waterboy follows the dimwitted title character (Adam Sandler’s Bobby Boucher) as he becomes a star football player by using his pent-up anger as a motivating tool – with complications ensuing as Bobby’s overprotective mother (Kathy Bates) inevitably forbids him from participating in the violent sport. Director Frank Coraci, working from a screenplay by Sandler and Tim Herlihy, has infused The Waterboy with a pervasively affable vibe that effectively compensates for its curious lack of laughs, with Sandler’s expectedly charming performance ensuring that the viewer can’t help but root for his character’s success both on and off the football field. The rather familiar trajectory of the movie’s storyline is consequently not quite as problematic as one might’ve anticipated, although it’s worth noting that the climactic match goes on far longer than necessary and is sure to leave football neophytes scratching their collective heads in confusion (ie the sequence is baffling even by the notoriously convoluted standards of the sport). Still, The Waterboy stands as a marked improvement over the majority of Sandler’s more recent endeavors (eg Click, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, I Now Pronounced You Chuck and Larry, etc, etc) and there’s little doubt that the film is often far more entertaining than it really has any right to be (ie the combination of Sandler’s oddball vocal work and the football-heavy storyline should’ve, by all rights, resulted in a seriously interminable piece of work).

**1/2 out of ****