BILLY MADISON 1995
40%
Directed by Tamra Davis
Written by Tim Herlihy and Adam Sandler
Starring Adam Sandler, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, Darren McGavin, Bradley Whitford
Synopsis
A spoiled twenty-something slacker must convince his hotelier father that he’s worthy of inheriting his empire. How? By successfully completing grades one through twelve.
Why We Love It
In the one-season-and-done series Undeclared, college freshman Marshall corners Adam Sandler after a campus gig, saying that he’s a big fan and that Billy Madison “was like punk-rock.” Sandler laughs politely, then Marshall adds, “But like everything after that, though… I just didn’t like, you know what I mean?”
We do. While Sandler had appeared on the big screen before, Madison was his cinematic arrival, chapter one in what we talk about when we talk about Adam Sandler Movies. That is, sub-sophomoric, loud, crude, dumb, and seemingly tailormade for prepubescent boys to quote to each other at recess. Billy Madison is all of these things. It’s also very funny, with an absurdist bent that, while not nearly as incendiary as punk (to quote that aforementioned Judd Apatow show), has a rebellious spirit that makes it a sizable cut above Sandler’s other manchild marquee efforts.
For the execs who greenlit it, Billy Madison was likely simply a big-budget canvas for Sandler to show off what was working so well for him at Saturday Night Live: the gibberish, the baby talk, the exaggerated facial expressions, the naivete, the macho outbursts—they’re all there. But rather than just stacking these signatures against a cookie-cutter story about a manchild returning to grade school and finally maturing, the film gleefully veers off into dark and weird asides. Among the many non-sequiturs: a bus driver (Chris Farley) getting a handjob from a penguin, a family of bullies driving off a cliff to their death while shouting “O’Doyle rules!” in unison, Billy’s nemesis (an excellent Bradley Whitford) burning alive, Billy receiving flirty valentines from his third-grade female classmates, and little kids laughing at a clown cracking his head open. Throw in some choice soundtrack moments (the Ramones’ “Beat on the Brat,” Electric Light Orchestra’s “Telephone Line”) and inspired bit parts (particularly a mild-mannered serial killer played by Steve Buscemi), and it’s hard not to be amused.
In its own twisted fashion, at points anyway, “Billy Madison rules.” (Happy Gilmore ain’t too shabby, either.)