The Cobbler review: The latest Adam Sandler comedy is run-of-the-mill stuff, but there’s a lot of fun to have in there too.
The Cobbler review
The Cobbler is one of those movies which was released in its domestic territory back last year, received relatively poor to mediocre reviews, and thus is getting a fairly low-profile international roll-out, which is a shame really, as there’s a lot of fun to be with Adam Sandler‘s latest comedy.
The film revolves around Sandler’s cobbler Max Simkin, a bored, single Jewish guy working on New York’s lower East Side in the family’s small business. When Max stumbles upon a magical family heirloom – a stitching machine which allows him to transform to look and appear like the owner of any pair of shoes he straps on – his life changes forever.
Written and directed by Tom McCarthy, who has helmed some absolute gems in the past including the recent Win Win and The Station Agent, The Cobbler is something of a mixed bag, but one that you cannot help but enjoy. Taking away some of the film’s earlier scenes (we mention one in which Sandler’s Simkin pulls on a pair of shoes belonging to a good-looking New York socialite (Dan Stevens) to try and bed a six-foot model, which quite frankly, comes across really quite sinister), The Cobbler is a decent little comedy with a great hook of a plot device. There are some great nods to the movies, or should we say TV series’ that it borrows from (Simkin’s first glimpse of a different image of himself in the mirror sees him say the words ‘oh boy,’ tipping the hat to Sam Beckett in the brilliant 1980s show Quantum Leap), but it also brings some pretty good ideas of its own, obviously with that trademark Sandler style of comedy. There’s some great support from veterans Dustin Hoffman and frequent Sandler co-star Steve Buscemi, as well as rapper-turned-actor Method Man and the great Ellen Barkin.
The Cobbler review
Sure it’s all disposable stuff, but you cannot help be charmed by Sandler as the lovable loser at the forefront of the movie, and the hapless life he leads until he finds his family’s legacy. The script does falter in places, and it may be a touch overlong, but it is well paced and enjoyable pretty much throughout. Sandler gets a lot of stick for the stuff he’s done, especially over the past few years, but in this case unjustly so, as I personally had a great time with the movie and the ending particularly pleased.
There are other films released this week which may take a priority for some cinemagoers, but there are also other movies which this definitely slots in above of in terms of the enjoyability factor.
I really liked it.
