Plot: What’s it about?
The sport of golf has come a long way since “Happy Gilmore” first arrived in 1996. Later that year Tiger Woods would make his professional debut and change the sport forever, making it more popular and almost single handedly making the sport more mainstream. At the same time, Adam Sandler was then pretty much known for his work on Saturday Night Live and his previous movie, “Billy Madison” was his only foray as a leading man. “Happy Gilmore” changed all of that and while not a huge commercial success, the gross was modest enough that it got him noticed and the rest – as they say – is history. One thing that always boggled my mind was the fact that there hasn’t been a sequel. As mentioned before, both the star and the sport are much more recognized than when the movie aired and it would seem to be a no-brainer to make another. But then again, I’m not a Hollywood executive. “Happy Gilmore” was a showcase for Sandler’s juvenile humor and no one loved it more than me.
We meet Happy Gimore (Adam Sandler) as he’s trying out for a local hockey team for the um-teenth time. By his own admission, he’s got the heart of a hockey player but wasn’t exactly the best puck-handler. Essentially, the only thing Happy brought to the game of Hockey was his slap shot (which could shatter the Plexiglas) and his temper (he holds a record in that he’s the only person to ever take off his skate and try to stab someone with it). After his grandmother’s (Frances Bay) house gets repossessed by the IRS, Happy discovers that he can make some money by hustling people at the driving range. You see, movers were playing with his grandfather’s clubs and to get them to go back to work, Happy had to out drive them…a major plot point there. Happy quickly falls under the wing of Chubs Peterson (Carl Weathers), a one-time touring professional who had his hand bitten off by an alligator. Happy makes it on tour and has eyes for the PR girl, Virginia Bennett (Julie Bowen), only to find out that she doesn’t date players. The only thing standing in the way of Happy winning the money is Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald), the current tour champion who thinks golf was better without someone like Gilmore.
Now I’ll be the first to admit, as a film critic, that “Happy Gilmore” isn’t the best movie out there. I personally like it and have seen it countless times. For every “Casablanca”, “The Godfather” and “The Graduate” there’s four or five movies like “Happy Gilmore”. Adam Sandler has become more commercially successful in his movies, but I really don’t think I’ve laughed harder at his performance than in this movie. Under the surface is the comic performance of Christopher McDonald, someone who’s done drama and comedy and can pull each off very convincingly, his Shooter McGavin is likeable yet despicable in the same sense. Sure this movie has its flaws and there’s more product placement than you can shake a stick at (then again, watch a golf tournament on a weekend and count the number of advertisements you see), but that’s that. Suffice it to say that this will probably be the only movie, past or future, that has a fight scene between a game show host (Bob Barker) and a golf player. Couple that with a sociopath nurse (Ben Stiller) and you’ve got one helluva movie on your hands.
Video: How does it look?
“Happy Gilmore†seems like a rather odd choice as one of Universal’s inaugural titles, but when you consider that it came out two days before the US Open started and just in time for Father’s Day, I’d say that Universal’s marketing department had this planned for quite some time. The HD transfer has given new life to the movie and although the earlier widescreen transfer looked good, there’s really no coming close to how it looks on HD. The 1.85:1 transfer got rid of a lot of the artifacting that was so common in earlier versions. Naturally a majority of this takes place on the lush golf courses and after watching the US Open just last week, I can say that “Happy Gilmore†looks just as good as it did on the HDTV broadcast. Flesh tones are warm and natural as well. I will say that when you think “Happy Gilmore†you don’t usually think High Definition, and there are other titles out there that look a bit better in HD – but for true fans of the movie (like myself) this is the definitive version.
Audio: How does it sound?
This is a bit odd, the standard DVD had the DTS track along with a Dolby Digital 5.1 track. Well, the DTS has been dropped and replaced with a Dolby Digital Plus mix that sounds even better than the old DVD’s did. Granted, this isn’t a movie that’s audio heavy, but there are some instances in which the channels fire up. The opening sequence in which we see Happy play hockey sounds pretty good and the scenes where he shows off his long drive rely heavily on the surrounds as well. For the most part, it’s a good surround mix that sounds better on HD-DVD.
Supplements: What are the extras?
Sadly, there aren’t a lot of supplements on this disc. There are some outtakes and 7 series of deleted scenes. These are shown in a non-anamorphic widescreen format and don’t tell why they were used, but we can see that they slow down the pacing of the movie. Some border on being outtakes. A funny one that I’ve seen on television (when shown on TV, Universal takes out some questionable material and uses scenes that weren’t in the movie as filler) involved Ben Stiller’s character at the nursing home. We see Happy take care of business with him! Some Production Notes are also included. While this isn’t the DVD to “end all” Special Editions, it’s certainly a step up from the previous version.
