Netflix and Chill: The Ridiculous Six

Kevthewriter kicks off his look at movies you can watch on Netflix with a review of The Ridiculous Six.

I decided to start a new column where I review movies/TV shows that one might catch on Netflix. They CAN be Netflix Exclusives but they don’t necessarily have to be, just anything that I saw on Netflix.

For the first review, we’re going with Adam Sandler’s first foray into Netflix (a.k.a. the moment his career was truly over). And also, simultaneously, possibly the most controversial movie of his career. While his other Netflix movies like The Do-Over and Sandy Wexler have basically blended into one’s Netflix queue, this one made headlines, not only for being Sandler’s first Netflix film but because it pissed off a lot of Native Americans.

For those who don’t remember, a bunch of Native American actors who were hired to be in the movie were offended at the jokes and ended up walking off the set in protest.

Now personally, I kind’ve feel like both parties were to blame here. Before you write me an angry letter, hear me out. Yes, the Native Americans have a right to be offended at the way their culture is being portrayed and, if they told the production team they were offended, they should’ve come to some sort of compromise. On the other hand, though, those actors were hired to do an Adam Sandler film, they really should’ve known going in that the portrayal of them was going to be stereotypical. I mean, have they seen Jack and Jill? Or any Happy Madison movie with an ethnic character in it?

Okay, now that you’re done throwing tomatoes, let’s talk about the film itself, as this whole thing kinda blew out after a few weeks after all.

I’m not gonna lie, this movie is bad. Honestly, I couldn’t get too angry at it because, with Adam Sandler, you basically know what you’re gonna get at this point, but, yeah, it was pretty bad.

Big problem with the movie is…there’s no real plot. There’s a SETUP where Adam Sandler is this guy who grew up with Native Americans meets his real father who tells him to find his missing brothers but, after that, the whole “find your missing brothers” thing is basically just used as an excuse for Adam to get in one dumb gag after the next and to meet one obnoxious character (most likely played by one of his friends or someone whose already worked with him) after the next.

The second problem, though, is that it’s not funny. Oh, sure, that’s normal for a Happy Madison Production. What makes it worse here, though, is that, because he has the freedom of Netflix he didn’t have with Sony, it seems like he tries basically anything to get a laugh. I mean, there’s literally a 5-minute scene of Steve Zahn cutting his eye out for christ’s sake! And a diarrhea scene involving a donkey that feels like it goes on for 5 minutes! Or there’s unfunny running gags like no one understanding what Hurley from Lost is saying or Terry Crews not realizing he’s black.

The characters range from annoying to just weird. For example, Adam Sandler’s character has superpowers. Why does he have superpowers? Because apparently growing up in a Native American village gives you superpowers…wait, what? Or how about Mark Twain being portrayed by Vanilla Ice as a guy talking in ghetto slang. What? What’s the joke? Why is Mark Twain (specifically) talking in ghetto slang supposed to be funny?

But none of the characters are as annoying as Taylor Lautner as a dumb yokel whose basically a Forrest Gump/Lenny from Of Mice and Men-esque simpleton. Lautner’s portrayal of this character is so annoying and obnoxious that he comes off less like Forrest Gump and more like the dumb Ed from Ed Edd N Eddy doing a Forrest Gump impression (Nothing? You’d probably have to be a millenial to get that). Every second he’s on screen, he’s just irritating to watch. At one point, he got hanged and I wish that his neck wasn’t strong enough (you read that right) to stop him from getting hanged.

There’s only one thing I’ll give this movie credit for. The cinematography is actually pretty nice. I mean, it doesn’t do anything to stand out from other modern Western movies but it actually looks like a legitimate Western movie as opposed to a fake parody of one.

Other than the look of the movie, though, this is a really annoying, irritating, unfunny movie. Not the worst Happy Madison movie (nothing’s worse than Jack and Jill) but I prefer A Million Ways to Die in the West any day over this.

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Ricardo
Ricardo
6 years ago

If anything, I should applaud your temerity. I mean, the words “Adam Sandler” and “movie” together already pretty much gave it away in 2015, let alone “Netflix-exclusive”.

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