Review: I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry


NY fireman and best buddies Adam Sandler (a major womaniser) and Kevin James pretend to be a gay couple so that James (who is a well-meaning, still-grieving widow with kids to care for) can reap the healthcare benefits. Things get a little more complicated when a suspicious government official (Steve Buscemi, unfunny for once) starts snooping around, and Sandler gets the hots for the lawyer (Jessica Biel) the duo hires in response to Buscemi’s trash-searching, super-snooping tactics and subsequently becomes her gay BFF. Dan Aykroyd is their employer, who is wise to their scheme from the get-go, Nicholas Turturro plays the same loud-mouthed homophobe I’ve seen him play about ten times, and Rob Schneider turns up as a supposedly Asian marriage celebrant.



I did not want to see this film. I figured it would be crude, homophobic, drastically unfunny, and above all else, a rip-off of the Aussie film “Strange Bedfellows”, a film I also did not want to see (and have not, as of 2019). But I was bored one afternoon, and this 2007 Dennis Dugan (“Happy Gilmore”, which is one of Sandler’s better films, and “Big Daddy”, which is not) film was on cable, so I succumbed. And y’know what? It was definitely crude, featured homophobic remarks and behaviour, parts of it were dreadfully unfunny (hello, Rob Schneider with his racist antics that were offensive back when Mickey Rooney did it in an Audrey Hepburn flick), and yes, it does have an almost identical plot to “Strange Bedfellows”. However, there are also parts of it that are genuinely funny (Ving Rhames is outrageously funny as a burly fireman with a secret), and the crude and homophobic stuff- and this is where I disagree with the rest of the seriously wrong-headed critics- is intentionally included to show just how stupid and shallow such behaviour is. Sure, the way the film starts to preach tolerance towards the end was unconvincing, but for all the film’s flaws, the cast and crew definitely did not set out with a homophobic agenda in mind. Without showing the two main characters being shallow and offensive in the early parts of the film, the climax would’ve been even less successful. And would Richard Chamberlain appear in a film that was single-mindedly homophobic? Didn’t think about that one, did ‘ya, dummies?



So tickle me surprised, the film nearly worked for me, and the two leads are well-cast, despite the 2-D characters they play. Give it a chance and you might find that this film doesn’t suck. Faint praise, but it’s accurate. The possibly plagiaristic screenplay is by Barry Fanaro (“Kingpin”, “Men in Black II”), and the surprising team of Oscar-winning Jim Taylor and Alexander Payne (“Election”, “Sideways”) I have no idea why nor what the latter contributed to the script.



Rating: C+

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