Eight Crazy Nights

A 33-year old delinquent breaks one law too many and is forced to serve as a basketball referee or face ten years in prison. Unfortunately for everyone in his small town, the foul-mouthed prick doesn’t seem to care much about his sentence and continues to insult and harass everyone around him. Then one day…

The first thing that I absolutely have got to “call” this movie on is the fact that they tried to oversell it on the “featuring a new version of the Hanukkah song by Adam Sandler” angle. I wouldn’t have minded so much if they had mentioned it once here or there, but it’s all over the posters, the lobby stand-ups, the friggin’ trailers…okay, we get it…he sings a new version of an old favorite…is that the best thing that you could say about this movie?!? I’m also one of those people who enjoyed that tune in the first place, so there I was waiting for it to come around again…and waiting…and waiting. Do you know when they finally played it? During the friggin’ end credits, dude! That’s right…as everyone and their pissed off uncles were shuffling out of the theater, grumbling about how much the movie sucked the big brass one, I could hear some semblance of the classic tune playing…somewhere in the background. Ugh…Happy Hanukkah indeed. Of course, one song does not a movie make or break, and what really doesn’t work here is that EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS just doesn’t know what kind of a movie it wants to be. Half of its jokes are adult-oriented, half of its jokes are extremely juvenile, there’s some sentimentality tossed into the mix, over-the-top tunes, kids, holiday fun and swear words all around. And pretty much all of it…doesn’t gel into a successful whole (unlike the SOUTH PARK movie, in which it all clicked)

There were also two lead character voices which were as annoying as you will ever find in any movie. Do you remember how Sandler would do his goofy voices on “Saturday Night Live” for 2-minute spurts and it would be funny? Well, imagine the same grating accents during an entire motion picture! No thanks. Whitey and his sister were especially irritating, although I will admit that I did get somewhat used to them by the end (both were also voiced by Sandler, incidentally). The story isn’t anything special either– very predictable. And for anyone who doesn’t know much about Hanukkah, the film doesn’t really provide for any more info on the holiday tradition either. The good news is that the whole shpiel barely lasts 70 minutes, provides for a couple of decent one-liners, a few funny lyrics and at least one catchy tune (“It’s a technical foul!”) A couple of the film’s more touching moments worked as well, but like I said earlier, they were usually followed up by a fart, ass, wedgie, snot or burp joke, and ultimately took you out of it again (and is “Smell you later, poopsicle” or a triple-titted woman really funny to anyone?) The animation was also decent, despite being very standard, and exuded just the right amount of holiday cheer. But overall, the movie is just too childish to be enjoyed by adults and too nasty to be enjoyed by the toddlers (and don’t even get me started on the embarrassingly over-used product placement…c’mon!). I predict a quick dip at the box-office, but look forward to Sandler’s next project opposite Jack Nicholson, which looks like a good time.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian