Reviewed By

Christopher Armstead
You know Adam Sandler's my guy, right?  I mean I paid good money to see 'Bulletproof' for the love of God.  I know I've mentioned that a thousand times before, but it was 'Bulletproof' and that can't be overstated enough.  Tragically, Adam has been treating this loyalty I've been showing him for close to two decades by virtually kicking me in the cinematic nuts repeatedly, with his last movie 'Jack and Jill' sending these virtual nuts of mine all the way to my virtual lower intestines.  Truly… an awful… awful movie.  Yet I still support my main man, though I did go into his latest film 'That's my Boy' wearing a virtual steel reinforced codpiece.  As it turns out I really didn't need it because while 'That's my Boy' is still fairly awful as far as cinematic qualifications are concerned, it did make me laugh which is something 'Jack and Jill' completely failed to do. 

You know the story.  A thirteen year old boy catches the attention of his overdeveloped eighth-grade teacher, they engage in sexual shenanigans with the boy being most afraid that his abusive dad might find out.  So right off the bat you can see that this is a comedy that has a basis firmly rooted in statutory rape and child abuse, so you know it's gonna be funny.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg of tastelessness that you will be subjected to for the next two hours (!).

The teacher gets knocked up, subsequently thrown in jail for thirty years for rape, the baby is snatched from her womb and given to the thirteen year old to raise.  Outstanding.  The good thing is the young Donny Berger has become sort of a national celebrity sensation with talk shows, TV shows, and all kinds of celebrity type stuff that come to people with little talent that do wrong in the 80's.  Think of Joey Buttafuoco as an example of this phenomena in action. 
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Moving things up to the present day, Donny Berger (Sandler) is a mess and his lawyer (Rex Ryan) informs him that he's going to jail unless he can come up with 50 large in a couple days to pay back taxes.  Turns out his son, who he hasn't spoken to in years, is a wealthy investment broker but considering he's changed his name from the awesome Han Solo Berger to the pedestrian Todd Peterson (Andy Samberg) chances are he's not too interested in hearing from dad, especially on the eve of his wedding to the lovely Ms. Jamie (Leighton Meester). 

Is that going to stop Donny from crashing this party?  No it is not because if it did stop him, then where would the shenanigans come from?  And trust me when I tell you that shenanigans galore shall ensue.  Fat jokes, dick jokes, fart jokes, semen jokes, incest jokes… because quite honestly nothing busts up a gut like incest… old people jokes, Vanilla Ice jokes, Todd Bridges jokes, enough profanity to choke a pig and Tony Orlando talking dirty.  There's some disturbing stuff masquerading as humor in this movie, but Tony Orlando talking dirty could be the most disturbing of them all.  I'll never watch those lame Time/Life 70's soft rock infomercials the same again.

Without spending too much time deconstructing the artistic value of this movie 'That's My Boy', we can say that it's crass, gross, tasteless, and is devoid of even the most basic of socially redeeming values.  You would be better served rustling up an old 'Faces of Death' VHS tape if you wanted to find a movie that is as socially valueless as 'That's My Boy' and that includes most pornography.  This also isn't the cleverest movie around when it comes to the way the humor is presented since Happy Madison Productions obviously assumes that the majority of its audience is either nine years old or at best has the intellectual capacity of a nine year old.  A slow nine year old at that.  So when someone farts or vomits or tastes semen or dry humps a stripper pole… we don't need to tax our brains too much because we know that's supposed to be a joke.  New York Jets coach Rex Ryan… who could very well be Former New York Jets coach Rex Ryan real soon if things keep going the way his team is going… feigning love for Patriots coach Bill Belicheck and Patriots QB Tom Brady is about as taxing as it gets.  No need to dig to deep into the psyche to unearth the Twain-esque literary references there. 

So with a plot as stale as fresh biscotti, and a cast of solid actors that is ultimately usurped by the thespian talents one Robert Matthew Van Winkle, 'That's My Boy' does largely succeed at its only purpose in life, that being making audience members with thick skin and a high tolerance level for disgusting tastelessness laugh.  The movie was also somewhat revelatory for me personally, because I had no idea that my ability to tolerate high levels of tastelessness was this damn high, but apparently it is.  I'm not proud of this either, but there it is. 

No sir, 'That's My Boy' doesn't make up for travesty that was 'Jack and Jill', nothing can ever remove that awful stench, but at least it this one manages to slightly amuse while being offensive as opposed to just being offensive.  And the last time Vanilla Ice and Todd Bridges were together?  Right here baby.  And it was awesome.
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