BILLY MADISON (1995)
Tagline: Billy Madison's going back to school... Way back.
(Comedy, Absolute Nonsense) [PG-13]
In this one, Brian Madison (played by Darren McGavin best known as the father from A CHRISTMAS STORY) owns a ton of hotels but wants to retire. His son Billy Madison (played by Adam Sandler) is basically an irresponsible moron so he is going to give the family's company to Eric Gordon (played by Bradley Whitford best known for GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS). Eric is an unethical jerk, so Billy begs his dad to let him take the company if he can complete every grade starting with the 1st grade. He is given two weeks to complete each. Billy is encouraged largely by a teacher named Veronica Vaughn who starts out hating him played by Bridgette Wilson (best known for her role in MORTAL KOMBAT), but can he actually complete the task or will his own carelessness lead to its usual disastrous conclusion?
I want to say aside from SNL, this is the movie that put Adam Sandler on the map as a lead. To this day it’s still regarded as one of his best movies ever, but the opinions on that may be changing with time depending on how well you have been taught to be triggered by things like crude humor and ridiculous nonsense. In one part Billy is throwing balls as hard as he can at kids playing dodge ball. I think at some point dodge ball got taken out of real-life schools because of some dumb reason. Some of the kids having crushes on Billy is probably considered overtly sexual, rather than mere childhood crush type stuff and so on. If however you haven’t been taught to embrace being constantly offended and to adhere to every possible imaginable offense known to man, this movie is actually pretty "belly laugh" hysterical in parts. Not every joke works, but a lot of them do and still hold up just fine for most of us.
None of the characters in this movie is even remotely realistic which actually helps this comedy work. Like in most Sandler movies, it’s not meant to be a masterpiece, it’s meant to be absolute nonsense. On top of the super outrageous obvious comedy, the movie has a lot of stuff only people that have read up on the movie would spot. For instance, in one scene Billy calls a kid he bullied in high school the first time (which he didn’t actually pass) to apologize. The dude has a bunch of names of people he wants to kill on his wall. Every name but Billy’s is a member of the real-life production crew. Near the end of the movie, there is a famous scene where Billy and Eric had to pick topics regarding questions they had to answer is what is basically a mental face-off. The topics were, English Literature, U.S. Presidents, My Wife The Tramp, Astronomy, Baking, Burning Dog Poo & The Human Response, Reflections Of Society In Literature, Information Systems, Chemistry, The Roman Empire, My Spouse Is Sleeping Around, The French Revolution, Automotive Repair, 20th Century Poetry, Calculus, Needlepoint, Architecture, Business Ethics, Shakespeare, and I Married Common Street Trash. The Needlepoint category actually explains a seemingly needless scene in the movie prior to that.
Overall this is not my favorite Adam Sandler movie, but it’s in the top 5 or 6. All the actors handled the crazy situations in the film really well. Even Larry Hankin who played Carl did well in the movie for a guy who later said he didn’t like the movie. In spite of the large number of kids in the movie, BILLY MADISON is not a kid's movie, but also isn’t nearly as crass as some of the stuff that has come out since 1995.
I give BILLY MADISON a 6 out of 7. I get that it may offend some, but it’s still less offensive than almost every adult animation show out there.
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I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. - John 16:33
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