Every week, Entertainment Weekly is looking back at the biggest movies of the summer of 2002.
Join us for a rewatch of the first true summer of Hollywood’s strange new millennium.
Next week: Here come the men in black…again.
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DARREN:Was this the most precarious moment inAdam Sandler’s career?
The formerSaturday Night Livestar flew high out of the ’90s.
It could have gone another way.Little Nickywas a genuine flop in 2000.Mr.
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Of course, by the timePunch-Drunkhit theaters,Mr.
Deedshad already made $171 million globally.
The concept comes loosely from a Frank Capra movie, butDeedsis a pure shot of Sandler cinema.
There’s the nonstop product placement.
And there areso manypeople giving Deeds a standing ovation.
His small town of Mandrake Falls cheers for him as he leaves for New York City.
New Yorkers cheer for him when he saves a woman and seven (seven!)
cats from a burning building.
Are you catching the frantic urge to be liked?
Leah, did you loveMr.
Deedsas much as everyone inMr.
(Justice forGems!)
(“Very, very sneaky.")
And I think you’re right to tease out some granular evolution in his performance style here.
Deeds is a genial character whoonlybrutally beats up four people.
His most abiding ambition is to write a greeting card.
Anyway, it’s the best I can do.”
For a second, it’s possible for you to spot all the sad frustration ofPunch-Drunk LoveorThe Meyerowitz Stories.
There’s some core concept here of a small-town fellow getting eaten alive by predatory Manhattanites.
You sense shifting mission statements.
“It’s an honor to come to the greatest city in the world!”
Bit of a horror movie in retrospect, but that was the 2000s, a decade Sandler dominated financially.
Actually, I thinkDeedsis more seminal for the actor as a producer.
I still don’t loveDeeds, but I do miss the possibility of big-top, big-screen laughs.
I dig the loopy tangents which is also why I have to disagree with you about Ryder.
Babe comes up with a quickie childhood backstory about falling off Boo Radley’s tree in Winchestertonfieldville, Iowa.
This turns out to be a real town, and Deeds flies her there, for a date!
When a local boy needs medical help, Deeds looks to Babe, an alleged school nurse.
“He’s choking,” Babe says.
“We should go.”
I laughed at Ryder’s delivery.
I, a parent, laughed at a choking boy.
Were there any individual sequences or lines that worked for you or really didn’t work?
LEAH:Ooh, good question.
He’s still rage-y inWedding, but the fury is much funnier and more specific to me.
Sure, impale that dead foot on a fire poker!
Throw 72 cats out the window, why not!
Punch Babe’s “mugger” in the face like you’re auditioning forFight Club!
(Gary Cooper would never, even inHigh Noon.)
One fun fact I learned in my studies, though (a.k.a.
Look, did I loveDeeds?
Read past 2002 rewatches:
