Sunday, October 23, 2016

Two Laughless Hours Later . . . The Ridiculous 6


The Good: Three lines, perhaps.
The Bad: Wastes the decent cast members, Not funny, Dull plot.
The Basics: Netflix is not doing its subscribers any favors by producing the Adam Sandler-led Western parody The Ridiculous 6.


When it comes to Adam Sandler comedies, I have long known to keep my expectations low. I grew up while Sandler was making his transition from Saturday Night Live to making blockbuster comedy films and they just did not grab me. Until Punch-Drunk Love (reviewed here!), Sandler did not really impress me with his acting abilities. I have also come to have fairly low expectations for Netflix original films as the majority of ones I've seen have left me unimpressed. So, the idea of a Sandler/Netflix film was one I went into with low expectations. The film is The Ridiculous 6 and it is not doing anything to improve my opinion on Adam Sandler comedies or Netflix original films.

The Ridiculous 6 is not Adam Sandler's attempt to make Blazing Saddles (reviewed here!), though Blazing Saddles is generally considered the gold standard of Western comedies. The Adam Sandler parody of a Western film is basically a generic Adam Sandler comedy set in the West. As such, it includes fart and shit jokes mixed in with dry deliveries of ridiculous lines that are hardly unique to the film, like generic baseball jokes. The Ridiculous 6 has bestiality jokes, physical humor and gross jokes involving smearing ointment on humans and flatulent burros indiscriminately. Much of the humor in The Ridiculous 6 falls flat and large chunks of the movie are just gross.

Opening with White Knife, a white man raised by Apaches, going into a nearby town to pick up some flour, he and his fiance are preyed upon by a gang of one-eyed bandits. Tommy "White Knife" Stockburn easily thwarts his adversaries and returns to the tribe that raised him before his biological father, Frank, shows up. Frank Stockburn wants to give his son the treasure he has amassed, but the next morning, the outlaw Cicero appears with his gang and kidknaps Frank for his treasure. Tommy goes off to steal $50,000 to cover the treasure that will not be there when Cicero's gang tries to have Frank dig up his treasure near a singing windmill.

While Tommy searches for places to rob, he encounters various half-brothers - other sons from Frank Stockburn. Tommy meets Ramon, his Mexican half-brother and Ramon encounters their idiot half-brother Pete while Tommy is clearing out the local bank. They discover an Asian half-brother, Herm; a black half-brother, Chico, and Danny, their white half-brother. Together, they try to steal a gold nugget worth $25,000. After their heist, the brothers sing around a campfire, play the first baseball game, and work together to rescue their father.

The Ridiculous 6 is generally a comedy that fails to inspire laughter. The two-hour film got me to smile three times and none of those smiles even came from Sandler. Given that Terry Crews is able to illicit more of a smile than Adam Sandler in The Ridiculous 6, it is hard to even call the movie an Adam Sandler comedy.

It is tough for me to rate movies with performers like Jorge Garcia (totally wasted as he does not have any lines that allow him to emote!), Harvey Keitel (who proves himself to be a definitively dramatic actor by illustrating no talent for comic timing in The Ridiculous 6) and Luke Wilson, so low, but when a movie just sucks, it just sucks.

The Ridiculous 6 just plain sucks.

None of the actors in the flick illustrate any new range or genuine talent - which is sad given that several of the actors are talented. The Ridiculous 6 is not clever, nor is it funny. It is simply a waste of two hours.

For other Netflix exclusive films, please check out my reviews of:
Mascots
ARQ
XOXO
Tallulah
The Fundamentals Of Caring

0/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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