Time flies when we're supposed to be having fun. Six years ago, you couldn't utter the words "firefighter" without "hero" appended to it. Now, it's apparently OK to portray New York's Bravest as homophobic meatballs - or "guidos," as they're described during one moment of this Dennis Dugan-directed laugh-fest - knuckleheads who wouldn't have the sense not to drown while staring up, slack-jawed, into a rainfall.
"I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" is yet one more takeoff on "Some Like It Hot," or maybe a reverse-action "La Cage aux Folles," about two friends who - for the kind of reasons only found in Hollywood movies - have to pretend to be gay. Larry Valentine (Kevin James), recently widowed, hasn't followed some department regulation, so his motherless children aren't listed as his dependents. In order to right a bureaucratic wrong, he has to convince his fellow firefighter Chuck Levine - a ladies' man of such irresistible sexual magnetism that he is being played by Adam Sandler - to become his "wife." Chuck resists the idea at first, of course, but eventually agrees to move in with Larry and the kids, marry Larry and become enlightened.
The running gag in the "Chuck and Larry" screenplay - co-written, bewilderingly enough, by the longtime team of Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor ("Sideways") - is the prehistoric notion that it's hilarious, even edgily so, when manly men act gay. Or are thought of as gay. Or are actually being forced to act gay. Has anyone in this film heard of, say, "Will & Grace"? I'm not recommending anyone watch it, but the fact is, the world has moved on.
The filmmakers will be excused, one supposes, because the movie eventually resolves into a touchy-feely mush bath in which everyone gets in touch with their inner homosexual. But it hardly excuses the fact that the first half of the movie is built on just how uncomfortable Chuck and Larry can be made to feel. Chuck's relationship with his "girlfriend" lawyer, Alex McDonough (Jessica Biel) is a direct lift from Tony Curtis/Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe, a la Billy Wilder - but then, there's a lot of recycling going on in this movie.
In a film whose directing and editing often seems purely amateurish, the best moments arrive via the supporting cast. Dan Aykroyd is especially good as the fire captain Tucker, mostly because he's naturally funny, whereas Sandler is not. Ving Rhames lets himself go as a fireman liberated from the closet by Chuck and Larry's example. Kevin James? His Larry isn't a long trip from "King of Queens," forever perpetuating the idea of the domesticated American male as an exasperated dope - a proud tradition stretching from Homer Simpson to Ralph Kramden. What are meant to be his sensitive moments are indigestible.
But the most appalling aspect of "C&L" is Rob Schneider, who plays the owner of a wedding chapel and offers up the most offensive Asian caricature since Mickey Rooney's notorious yellow-face performance in "Breakfast at Tiffany's." What were they thinking? Simple: They weren't.
I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY. PG-13. Coerced by a blinkered bureaucracy, two firefighters pretend to be gay. Trite, tired and shockingly unenlightened, especially for a comedy pretending to be about tolerance. With Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Jessica Biel, Dan Aykroyd, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi. Screenplay by Barry Fanaro, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor. Directed by Dennis Dugan. 1:50 (sexual innuendo, crude humor, language, adult content). At area theaters
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