Review of The Cobbler (2014) by Jesse O — 08 Jul 2015

Better than the usual Adam Sandler movie, and I do have to give the guy props for trying to, at least, branch out with different movies the last couple of years. Granted, as far as I can tell, it was just this and Men, Women and Children.

But at least he made an effort as opposed to making the same pieces of crap he's made for close to 20 years now. With that said, honestly, it's not like this film is really that good to begin with.

I mean it's got a good concept, even though it plays more like 'modern' version of Quantum Leap, a show that I love, and this film simply cannot compare to in any way whatsoever. I just don't think that the film makes a good use of its concept.

Essentially Max, a cobbler, can literally step into the shoes of his customers if he uses a stitcher to fix the shoes that has been in his family in generations. Seems interesting enough...for a short film, maybe not necessarily a full-length film.

I just think the film is all over the place thematically and tonally. Parts of it are wish-fulfillment, parts of it are sentimental drama, parts of it are a father-son reconnecting and yet none of these elements come together to a coherent whole.

There's also some weird racism in the film in that the there's two crimes, when Max first discovers this power, and both times, one was a dine and dash and the other was robbing someone of their shoes, and both times Max used shoes that belonged to black people.

That left a really poor taste in my mouth, particularly when there's only two crimes committed and both are done by black people. Maybe I wouldn't have had so much of a problem with it if perhaps they dealt with how Max was negatively affecting the lives of people he pretended to be, but they never even come close to that, even though that seems like a natural set-up.

if you think they'd actually go to a somewhat dramatically interesting route, then you would be wrong. Which makes these instances of Max using black men's shoes to commit petty crimes all the more absurd, ridiculous and pointless.

Other than that one bit of racist stereotypes, I do think the film means well. It's just not all that smartly structured. As far as Adam Sandler's performance goes, he's not bad, but he's not extraordinarily good either.

I'm just sort of indifferent to his performance in here. The supporting cast is solid, but the writing is just not good enough to make any of their performances truly effective. Like I said, the film is all over the place tonally and thematically.

It doesn't really know what it wants to be, but it's somewhat well-made. I don't really have much else to say honestly. It's still a step above the usual Sandler fare, but it's not something that's worth watching either.

It's watchable, at best, but not really worth it.