'Happy' just another normal guy

By Tim Grierson
Staff Writer

To say that "Happy Gilmore" is the best of the ever-increasing bunch of Saturday Night Live films is hardly an impressive conclusion. After all, that only puts it ahead of such dreck as "Coneheads," "Tommy Boy," and the overrated "Wayne's World" series.
But what it does suggest is that comedian Adam Sandler-allowed to play a person as opposed to a funny-for-two-minutes sketch character-can carry a film, even one as admittedly slim as this one.
Directed by Dennis Dugan (who, Lord help us, also wrought the first "Problem Child"), "Happy Gilmore" plots the familiar path of these SNL genre flicks. The seemingly normal guy (Sandler as Happy) is down on his luck; in this case, he wants to be a hockey player even though his only discernible talent is that he can whack stuff really hard. The normal guy has a simple, straightforward obstacle to overcome; here, Sandler has to raise the money to pay his grandmother's back taxes and get the family house back before it's put on the auction block.
To resolve the conflict, the normal guy needs to go out on the quest. Happy discovers he can hit a golf ball farther than anyone else on the pro tour. Next thing you know, he's competing in tournaments, hoping to make enough to help out his grandmother, who bides her time in a retirement home from hell.
Naturally, the best guy on the tour (Christopher McDonald) is a jerk who wants to ensure that Happy gets off the tour immediately. Let's not forget the love interest (Julie Bowen) who-despite all the cultured, successful men around her-will invariable go for our normal guy.
Anyone watching "Happy Gilmore" after 10 minutes (or anyone who has read up to this point in the review for that matter) can guess exactly where the film's going and where it will end up. Sandler and co-screenwriter Tim Herlihy (both responsible for unleashing "Billy Madison" upon us) know the conventions, so the enjoyment comes from how much freshness they bring to this material.
The secret of the film's success rests in its fine supporting cast, especially McDonald, who pretty much walks away with the movie. As Geena Davis' overbearing husband in "Thelma & Louise" and the slicker-than-slick game show host of "Quiz Show," McDonald has shown than he can play unappealing characters so shameless in their repellent behavior that you laugh right along with them.
Well, he's done it again, lovingly turning his cardboard boo-hiss villain into an adversary deserving to get trounced. As the legendary Shooter McGavin, McDonald gets a lot of comic mileage out of making hyper-tense faces when he's angry over Happy's shenanigans, never letting on just how mad he really is. It's much harder to explain than to see it yourself, but it works.
And then there's Sandler, so much more tolerable than ever before because he seems to have relaxed on camera since his last film. As opposed to the obnoxious overkill of Chris Farley and the smug shtick of his cohort, David Spade, Sandler comes off as the most normal guy from the SNL crew. For once, one of these comedian-turned-actors is playing a character instead of a mildly amusing caricature. It's rare to say for one of these movies, but you actually like the guy and want to see him succeed (and when did you feel that way about Farley's fat-man antics?).
While most of the SNL films burn out after the first half-hour (if you can even get that far into them), "Happy Gilmore" has just enough twists so that although you've been there and done that, you don't mind the trip one more time. Bowen and Sandler make for a sweet couple, and McDonald is delightful, always hanging around the periphery of the picture, practically rubbing his hands together and laughing nefariously.
The movie makes do with its surprising amount of charm, and that's a commodity this entire genre could use a little more of.