Eight Crazy Nights (2002) Columbia/Comedy RT: 76 minutes Rated PG-13 (language, frequent crude humor, drunken behavior, drug references, adult themes) Director: Seth Kearsley Screenplay: Brooks Arthur, Allen Covert, Brad Isaacs and Adam Sandler Music: Teddy Castellucci, Marc Ellis and Ray Ellis Release date: November 27, 2002 (US) Cast: Adam Sandler, Jackie Titone, Austin Stout, Kevin Nealon, Rob Schneider, Norm Crosby, Jon Lovitz, Tyra Banks, Blake Clark, Peter Dante, Ellen Albertini Dow, Kevin Farley, Cole and Dylan Sprouse, Carl Weathers, Allen Covert, Carmen Filpi, Archie Hahn, Betsy Hammer, Alison Krauss. Box Office: $23.6M (US)
Rating: ***
In this day and age of political correctness when we say “Happy Holidays” to accommodate both those who celebrate Christmas and those who celebrate something else, it’s only fitting Hollywood offer up a holiday-themed movie aimed at Jewish audiences who observe Hanukkah, the eight-day holiday also referred to as the Festival of Lights. Who better to serve it up than Jewish funny guy Adam Sandler (The Wedding Singer), the man who’s given us three different versions of “The Chanukah Song”?
Well, put on your yarmulke and get ready for Eight Crazy Nights, one of the very few Hanukkah movies out there. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any others. A quick Google search revealed there aren’t that many.
The animated comedy stars Sandler as Davey Stone, a 33YO troublemaker with a big drinking problem and an extensive criminal record dating back to his youth. You could think of him as the Jewish version of the Grinch (“You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinchberg!”). He hates the holiday season with a passion and wants nothing to do with it. In fact, he wants nothing to do with anything or anybody in the town of Dukesberry. He’d rather wallow in booze, misery and self-loathing.
As the movie opens, Davey is on the run from the local cops after pulling a dine-and-dash at the local Chinese restaurant. The drunken jackass glides through town on a trash can lid, steals somebody’s snowmobile and destroys the town’s holiday ice sculptures (Santa Claus and a menorah). The town judge is about to throw his ass in jail when elderly Whitey Duvall (Sandler) steps up and offers to let Davey serve as his assistant referee for the Jewish youth basketball league as a form of probation. Davey was once a star player on the team, but something happened that made him quit the team and give up on life at the tender age of 12. The judge agrees to it, adding that one more slip-up on Davey’s part will land him in jail for ten years.
The 70YO Whitey is a joke to the residents of Dukesberry. He’s about three feet tall and still lives with his equally weird twin sister Eleanore (Sandler), a diabetic who wears a series of wigs. She’s always on the lookout for the punk who snatched her Elizabeth Taylor wig some forty years earlier. Whitey is completely out of touch with modern society and often has seizures triggered by stressful situations, many of them caused by Davey’s obnoxious and mean behavior. Their relationship is contentious at first, but they start becoming friends after Davey is forced to move into the Duvall home when somebody burns down his trailer.
Davey’s childhood girlfriend Jennifer (Titone, Sandler’s real life wife) moves back to town with her young son Benjamin (Stout) after her divorce. She hates who Davey’s become. She’s disgusted that her first love has become a crude, alcoholic a**hole. He’s not much happier with himself. He suffers in silence over the tragedy that occurred on Hanukkah when he was 12. It’s what turned him into the miserable drunk everybody knows and despises. They’re sick and tired of his destructive antics and can’t wait for him to slip up and be gone. Whitey is the only one who believes in Davey.
It bears mentioning that the only thing the kind little old man wants from life is to win the annual Patch Award, a prize that’s eluded him for 35 years. Despite how everybody treats him, good-hearted Whitey still goes out of his way to do odd jobs and favors for the townspeople.
Eight Crazy Nights is a goof on all those sappy animated holiday specials that show up on TV each year. The characters burst into song on several occasions. Since this is an Adam Sandler comedy, it’s a given they’re not going to be like the sweet little numbers from the specials we all grew up watching every December. “Long Ago” has Davey and Jennifer singing about how they used to feel about each other in their youth. The lyrics include crude interjections from Whitey (“The only time I had sex was on the phone”) and other minor characters (“My darling wife was once a he”). “Technical Foul” reveals how irritating Whitey and Eleanore truly are as they explain the rules of their house to Davey (“In this house we say ‘Bull spit!’”, “If you touch the thermostat, you’ll get hit with a bat cuz that’s a technical foul!”).
Sandler’s involvement in anything all but guarantees a lot of crude, juvenile humor and crass, obnoxious behavior, often at the expense of others. Eight Crazy Nights is full of both. One scene has Davey taunting a fat kid on the basketball court about his “boobs” and taking great delight in making him cry. In another, he locks Whitey in a Port-a-Potty and knocks it over, covering the old man with fecal matter. Davey turns a hose on him and turns him into a block of brown-colored ice with the exit line, “Smell you later, poopsicle!” Other low-lights include Davey making somebody eat the sweaty jock strap of an obese guy, burping loudly into the face of a Chinese waiter and mooning a group of carolers. In other words, it’s business as usual for Adam.
There’s a funny bit about the friendly deer living in the woods. They show up now and then to help Whitey out of embarrassing predicaments. They free Whitey from the ice by licking away at it before turning towards the camera and giving new meaning to “s*** eating grin”.
Eight Crazy Nights is a very funny movie, but for all the wrong reasons. Much like Dumb and Dumber and Billy Madison, it’s gross, obnoxious, irreverent, sophomoric, crass, scatological, offensive and completely moronic. It’s aimed right at middle schoolers and drunken frat boys. It’s not a serious treatment of Hanukkah at all. The only difference between this Sandler performance and others is he voicing an animated version of his usual character type.
I like that many of Sandler’s former Saturday Night Live cast mates also provide voices. Rob Schneider (Deuce Bigalow) serves as narrator of this twisted tale. Jon Lovitz (The Wedding Singer) is a wealthy businessman with a hook at the end of his left arm. Naturally, Davey asks him (in song, no less) if he ever accidentally used that hand to wipe his bottom. The answer is yes, of course. It’s an Adam Sandler movie, what else would it be?
Alison Krauss provides the singing voice of Jennifer. She has a magnificent voice and adds emotion to the songs even though the desired effect of the songs is laughter. Ah yes, emotion. There’s plenty of it in Eight Crazy Nights, believe it or not. The moment Davey finally comes to terms with the tragedy that reshaped his life might bring a tear to your too.
The idea of turning a crude Adam Sandler comedy into an animated musical is both brilliant and ludicrous. Not all of Eight Crazy Nights works, but that’s the essence of Sandler’s comedies. He plays to a specific audience and they’re not looking for intellectualism. His particular brand of comedy plays best to people who automatically laugh at words like “poop”, “pee” and “boobies”. His fans will not be disappointed.
Eight Crazy Nights will never be regarded as a film classic, but since it’s the most prominent movie about Hanukkah (it’s the only one that I know of), I think it’s safe to say it’ll be a cult classic. I’m just wondering one thing. Why hasn’t Mel Brooks ever made a Hanukkah movie? Can you imagine what he could do with that concept? I see real potential with this idea. Maybe I should e-mail Mel, you think?
