Mr. Deeds

REVIEW
After Sandler's notorious flop Little Nicky (which almost single-handedly ruined New Line studios and the actor's career), one would have assumed that he would have paid slightly more attention to his next film's creative input/output. Well, attention was not paid. Sandler reunites with Nicky director Brill and screenwriter Tim Herlihy for a remake of Frank Capra's 1936 classic Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and the result is truly awful. Sandler takes over the Gary Cooper role, now a small-town pizza shop owner who inherits $40 billion. This sends him to the big city and catapults him into the spotlight as one of New York's rich and famous. Ryder is the reporter (unbeknownst to him) who befriends him for the scoop. Sloppily directed and edited, Mr. Deeds is so unfunny and undisciplined that it's almost as if Sandler were testing his audience to see exactly how much bad writing and acting they could take. The only stench of spontaneity comes from Turturro as a quick-footed butler, but it alone is not enough to make this even barely tolerable.