Movie Review: “Happy Gilmore 2”
The biggest challenge for any motion picture involving golf is the golf itself.
Dating back to 1951’s “Follow The Sun,” a biopic on Ben Hogan’s life starring Glenn Ford, finding actors who can pull off a believable golf swing has proven difficult. The through-line includes Randy Quaid in “Dead Solid Perfect” (1988), Matt Damon in “The Legend of Bagger Vance” (2000) and Shia LaBeouf as Francis Ouimet in “The Greatest Game Ever Played” (2005).
Which brings me to “Happy Gilmore 2,” which dropped on Netflix last week, nearly 30 years after the original.
In fairness, neither the original nor the sequel is, in fact, a golf movie. When “Happy Gilmore” was released in 1996, it was simply an Adam Sandler sports movie vehicle wherein he did Adam Sandler things.
Adam Sandler as a college football player? “The Waterboy.”
Adam Sandler as a former professional football player, now incarcerated? A remake of “The Longest Yard,” which included a supporting role for Burt Reynolds, who starred in the excellent 1974 original.
(Fun fact: Burt Reynolds was a stud athlete. All-state as a fullback in 1953 and also lettered in track at Palm Beach High School before heading to FSU, where his football career was cut short by a knee injury and a catastrophic 1955 car accident. Out of football for nearly two full years, Reynolds enrolled at Palm Beach Junior College, took a stab at a school play, and won an award for his performance. The rest, as they say, is history.)
Anyway: “Happy Gilmore 2” is not a golf movie. It’s a Sandler vehicle that is completely incomprehensible if you haven’t seen the 1996 original. Two hours of callbacks and stunt casting wherein Sandler, now empowered by his years in Hollywood, brings back as many original cast members as he can and packs the film with cameos from current media personalities. The entire movie is an inside joke.
My daughter, who is a recent Film/TV graduate, wanted to watch the sequel while home on a visit, so we did a movie night for the original. After that, she watched Happy 2 on her own, and she pealed with laughter as a film student would. She got the joke.
The plot, such as it is: Happy Gilmore went on to a successful career in golf, winning multiple tournaments, but 30 years after his breakout performance, he’s down on his luck. After a family tragedy (no spoilers!), Happy has blown his cash, lost his grandmother’s house, and relocated to a rough section of town, where we find John Daly (or “Uncle John Daly,” as Happy’s five kids refer to him) living in Happy’s garage. The story starts with Happy’s daughter Vienna (Sunny Sandler, Adam’s daughter) gaining entry into an exclusive ballet school in Paris that Happy cannot afford. He decides to dust off his clubs and return to golf as a way to make money to further her dreams.
One problem: he’s drinking too much and gets sent to rehab, where he meets a sweet young woman named Charlotte who bolsters his confidence. “Charlotte” is daughter Sadie Sandler, who has been in several of Dad’s movies.
John Daly is hilarious. Never feels like he’s acting — rather, he’s just Uncle John Daly. Christopher McDonald chews the scenery for a full two hours reprising his role as Shooter McGavin, who has been committed to a mental institution ever since losing to Happy in 1996. McDonald clearly relished the chance to be Shooter again — truthfully, he never stopped being Shooter. Ben Stiller is back as the sadistic Hal, once an orderly at Grandma’s nursing home and now the leader of Happy’s sketchy rehab group. Basically, every living member of the original cast is back, and those who have passed, including Carl “Chubbs” Weathers, get reverential treatment in flashbacks. Bad Bunny, who is credited under his real name of Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, is in competition with Daly as the guy who steals the movie. He’s utterly hilarious in a role that actually matters to the story.
Not a golf movie, but there are multiple PGA Tour and LPGA pros who play various roles as the “plot” deteriorates into a battle between Regular Golf and an upstart rival golf league that looks suspiciously like LIV.
The Big Four tour players who are integral to the plot are Rory McIlroy, Bryson Dechambeau, Brooks Koepka, and Scottie Scheffler. While Rory and Bryson are willing participants, Koepka’s interest seems to rise and fall, and you can make your own joke about his golf game here. Scheffler makes the biggest Sunday charge, going from relatively flat early on to one of the best running gags in the latter half of the movie. It involves handcuffs and a jail cell, and that’s all I’ll say.
Notables: Will Zalatoris leans in to the running joke on the PGA Tour that he resembles Happy’s caddie from the original. Paige Spiranac plays it straight as a sporting goods salesperson.
Nancy Lopez and Nelly Korda are dead-on as members of the review board at the mental institution. Korda has that bored Czech supermodel vibe that plays deliciously as she decides Shooter’s fate.
Xander Schauffele proves to be a capable physical comic actor. Jordan Spieth has one line that plays against his type, and pulls it off. Jack Nicklaus has an exchange with Travis Kelce (playing a waiter) that is pretty clever.
It was a thoughtful touch to bring Verne Lundquist back to his original role, but it’s also tough to listen to him. Father Time is undefeated.
If you’re into cameos, this is a movie you’ll need to watch more than once. Eminem, Sean Avery, and Chris Chelios make stealthy appearances. Heisman winner Reggie Bush is almost unrecognizable as “8-Ball,” a member of the breakaway golf league.
“Happy Gilmore 2” is a testament to Adam Sandler’s influence in the industry. He brought on Chad Mumm, the producer behind the “Full Swing” series on Netflix, to help corral golf’s biggest names, but the rest of the movie is just Sandler taking care of his friends and family (in addition to his daughters, his wife and mother are also in the film). To go from “Billy Madison” to the Mark Twain Prize is no small feat, and Sandler did it by sticking to his formula of goofy, slapstick comedy. Had this film been made 20 years ago, it would have a very different tone and would likely be viewed as a box office flop. In the Netflix age, however, there’s no such thing as a box office, so it really doesn’t matter. Call your friends and make a movie? Might as well.
If anything, it gives us viewers of a certain age an excuse to watch the original with our kids.
