Review of The Cobbler (2014) by Harry W — 01 Jul 2015

Though Adam Sandler films have been declining in quality with recent years, as a dedicated fan of his I needed to see The Cobbler to keep up with his career.

The Cobbler takes a different approach to recent Adam Sandler films. The humour is not over the top and crude material, but rather extremely subtle. It's rather good that the material is taking a different approach because with such a limited budget to spend on The Cobbler it limits the potential for the film to end up a overblown waste of time like Jack & Jill or Blended. But because of this and the fact that Adam Sandler's gimmick has worn off a bit in recent years, the material in The Cobbler is ultimately too subtle to create any sense of consistent lautgher. Ultimately, the film feels like a comedy drama since it attempts to balance its wacky magical comedy theme with a sense of sentimentality. Unfortunately, the result is neither compelling nor hilarious, but rather just extensively slow and boring.

The gags in The Cobbler are weird because half the time it is not clear whether the film is making a joke or contributing to its narrative. But either way, neither elements prove effective because the film does not have enough narrative coherence or character depth to succeed as a genuine drama, and attempts to do that interfere with the comedic potential of the film and ensure that it is not funny. It's odd actually because the premise of the film is extremely outlandish, and the decision to take a more subtle approach to intended humour in the narrative fails to match up to the ridiculous nature of the premise. The story in The Cobbler is ridiculous and makes not attempt to hide that fact, but at the same time it makes little attempts to find original humour in its concept. I mean, the film is about a middle aged Jewish man who finds himself able to step inside the skin of people around him by putting on their shoes after tampering with a magic Jewish cobbler machine. I didn't care so much about the fact that this plot point made no sense because it matches the unrealistic nature of Adam Sandler comedies such as 50 First Dates and Click, but the fact is that there was just little comic value in the film. The script was not clever, the entire film felt too subtle and the characters do not make an attempt to honestly do anything. After playing around with the comic concept for a while, director Thomas McCarthy attempts to put a story into the film regarding protagonist Max Simpkin trying to help out people with his newfound power. In the process, the film becomes so focused on its story that it takes itself way too seriously for a film with such a ridiculous concept. This is part of the film's attempts to put genuine drama into the experience, and part of its failure to succeed as a form of entertainment in the process.

The entire production just ultimately feels like too much of an amateur film, but considering that Thomas McCarthy is an accomplished director with an Academy Award nomination under his belt as one of the writers of the animated film Up among other things, it is a massive step down for the accomplished filmmaker to be the writer of this lacklustre Adam Sandler vehicle. The film still has the low profile feel of Thomas McCarthy's works because of the fact that the on-location scenery feels very genuine in capturing the legitimate aspects of the narrative while being captured by effective cinematography. And as well as that, the musical score is a nice touch because it is appropriately atmospheric in capturing the light comedic feel of the Jewish themes in the story. But though the technical values of the film give it a stylish low-scale visual style, it is only a slight step in the right direction for a film which is already so unfunny and poor in terms of story.

And riding the lacklustre nature of the screenplay, even the cast of The Cobbler fail to elevate the film.

Adam Sandler fails to bring any life to The Cobbler. Like I said, the material is crass in parts but is executed predominantly in a subtle fashion, and so Adam Sandler's effort ends up following the same style. Adam Sandler's restrained performance is incredibly similar to his following effort in Men, Women & Children, except that in the context of The Cobler it needs to be far more comically oriented to match up to the subject matter of the film. Unfortunately, the result is a dull and uninvolved performance which is too shallow to be compelling and too short on charisma to be funny in any manner. Adam Sandler's restrained effort may not make him an annoying character, but he remains far from being entertaining as the actor headlining The Cobbler. It would be hard to think of any actor who could honestly make such material all that great, but Adam Sandler seems to take such a half-assed dramatic approach that the resulting appeal of it all is ultimately minimal. Adam Sandler's dull performance in The Cobbler is little more than a reminder that his best years are behind him while suggesting he does not have much more appeal left in him.

The Cobbler even features the presence of two time Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman and puts him to no use. Even Meet the Fockers knew what to do with him, but apparently The Cobbler does not. Dustin Hoffman's role is extremely brief, and even though he has his own natural charm about him there is little appeal in what he does which begs the question of why anyone bothered to cast him in the first place. Dustin Hoffman deserves better than the shoddy treatment and character he gets stuck with in The Cobbler, and it is sad that he is so underutilised.

Even Ellen Barkin is pathetic, and though Steve Buscemi usually maintains some sort of appeal in an Adam Sandler film he is there for solely dramatic purposes which do not work despite his efforts.

So The Cobbler has a ridiculous premise, but instead of embracing that it tones the humour down in favour of a ridiculous route of sentimentality which ultimately leaves the film dull, lifeless and bereft of any sense of actual involvement from Thomas McCarthy in his worst film to date.