DIRECTOR
Steven
Brill
SCREENWRITERS
Tim
Herlihy
Adam Sandler
Steven Brill
PRODUCERS
Jack Giarraputo
Robert Simonds
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Theo van de Sande
MUSIC
Teddy Castellucci
EDITOR
Jeff Gourson
CAST
Adam Sandler (Nicky)
Patricia Arquette (Valerie)
Harvey Keitel (Satan)
Rhys Ifans (Adrian)
'Tiny' Lister (Cassius)
Rodney Dangerfield (Lucifer)
Allen Covert (Todd)
Peter Dante (Peter)
Jonathan Loughran (John)
Robert Smigel (Mr. Beefy, voice)
Reese Witherspoon (Holly)
Dana Carvey (Referee)
Jon Lovitz (Peeper)
Kevin Nealon (Gatekeeper)
Michael McKean (Chief of Police)
Quentin Tarantino (Deacon)
Carl Weathers (Chubbs Peterson)
MPAA rating: PG-13
Running
time: 90m
U.S. release: November 10, 2000
Video availability: VHS - DVD
Official
website
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If you're not already an admirer
of the cinema of Adam Sandler -- if, in fact, you're one of the
many who can't seem to stand him -- his new one, Little Nicky,
isn't likely to win you over. As Nicky, the dweeby youngest offspring
of Satan, Sandler almost goes out of his way to put off non-Sandlerites:
speaking in a croaking voice that's a cross between childish
and child-molester, wearing his hair in two greasy black points
across his face, he's hard to look at and listen to. Yet Sandler
remains essentially likable, a dork who stays true to himself
and tries to do the right thing. Which in this case, oddly, is
getting Satan reinstated to his throne in Hell.
Satan, played by an ingeniously cast Harvey Keitel as a sort
of brimstone riff on his courtly Mr. Fix-It in Pulp
Fiction, has reigned in Hell for 10,000 years; he's supposed
to step down and give the keys to one of his three sons -- Nicky,
who doesn't really want it, or his two brothers, the saturnine
Adrian (Rhys Ifans, from Notting
Hill) and the imposing Cassius (Tiny Lister). When Satan
decides to stay in charge, reasoning that his spawn aren't mature
enough to "keep a balance between good and evil," Nicky's
brothers rebel, escaping to Earth and blocking the entrance to
Hell so that no new souls can get in. This case of metaphysical
constipation is bad for Satan, who starts falling apart. It's
up to Nicky, with the help of a talking dog named Mr. Beefy (voiced
by Robert Smigel, who also does Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
on Late Night with Conan O'Brien), to catch his brothers
and save his dad.
I can't say that Adam Sandler's movies have ever made me laugh
hard and nonstop (though his gently goofy voice in The
Waterboy kept me amused throughout), and Little Nicky
is no different. It's a shambling, shabby comedy, basically good-hearted
and naggingly endearing, and this movie's high concept and snazzy
special effects don't detract from its lowdown charm. As always,
Sandler meets a quirky woman (this time it's Patricia Arquette,
sweetly geeky in glasses, reminding us after such duds as Stigmata
why some of us find her appealing); as always, he becomes bashful
and sincere around her, offering his affections without ever
trying to pretend he's something he isn't. (Well, he does tell
Arquette he's from "the deep South." If so, did he
mess with the ballots down there?)
At times, Little Nicky feels like Kevin Smith's Dogma
without the, well, dogma, or discussion of same. Unlike the Catholic
Smith, the Jewish Sandler has no particular axes to grind or
questions to ask about the God/Satan thing; he pulls together
a cast worthy of Dogma (there's a ton of cameos,
including many Saturday Night Live veterans), but the
scripting here (by Sandler, Tim Herlihy, and director Steven
Brill) is more laid-back than Smith's. Nicky lands in Manhattan,
a place full of eccentrics, including two goofy headbangers,
wannabe actor Allen Covert (a Sandler pal), and manic blind street
preacher Quentin Tarantino. Hell is equally full of lively personalities,
and those who remember Rhys Ifans as the scruffy Welshman in
Notting Hill will be surprised to see him cleaned up here,
looking like Ralph Fiennes crossed with Ziggy Stardust; when
he temporarily claims Hell's throne, he looks like he belongs
there. Ifans is an actor to watch.
Little Nicky is a pleasantly sloppy party that doesn't
go on too long. It may represent a turning point for Sandler,
who has probably taken the uncouth man-child shtick as far as
it can go; will he still be doing this stuff five years from
now, when he's 40? (Then again, at the time of The Jerk,
who knew Steve Martin had a performance like The
Spanish Prisoner or a book like Shopgirl in him?)
I like Adam Sandler's movies -- comfortable, unpretentious, never
dull -- but I'm always more interested in his next movie.
Word around the campfire is that Paul Thomas Anderson, writer-director
of the ambitious misfires Boogie
Nights and Magnolia,
may team with Sandler for a comedy next year.*
I can't wait to see that, because they may be great for each
other; Anderson may kick Sandler up a notch -- busting him out
of the uncouth-man-child box he's snuggled into -- and Sandler
might have a calming, simplifying effect on Anderson. We'll see.
* That comedy eventually did come out
two years later, and did not impress me as much as I'd
hoped; see my review of Punch-Drunk
Love.
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