JACK AND JILL

title: JACK AND JILL
year: 2011
cast: Adam Sandler, Al Pacino
rating: **

Does it even need to be said that Adam Sandler playing his own sister would make an awful movie? It’s pretty obvious, being that this particular gimmick is an indication that a sitcom's run out of ideas – which this plays out like: a pilot that’d be cancelled in a flash. And does it have to be said that Al Pacino, playing "himself" with the hots for Adam Sandler in drag, is blasphemous to classic filmgoers?

For anyone who thinks Al merely provides a cameo, he’s one of the main characters. Scenes involving the iconic actor dating Jill, the twin sister of TV director Jack… who really wants Pacino to star in a donut commercial… are about as bad as things get. But worst of all: it’s not even fun to bag on. While a few one-liners involving Jill spouting politically-incorrect statements aren’t completely without merit, and there's a so-bad-it's-entertaining aspect during the first half, the rest of the film, as a melancholy score evokes sympathy for her subliminally lonesome character, is an uneven mess.The locations involving Jill ruining Jack’s existence on a prolonged holiday visit go from a mansion to a cruise ship, where Sandler returns to his bad movie roots ala GOING OVERBOARD, which is THE WEDDING SINGER comparably. Pretty bad stuff here, but who’s surprised? And there's one telling scene where Pacino, after viewing the cheesy commercial he filmed for Jack, says something like: "This is terrible. No one can see this." Perhaps he was speaking of the movie itself, because the commercial is way more entertaining, and funnier too.