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SANDY WEXLER
April 14, 2017  | By David Bianculli

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

 

TELEMOVIE PREMIERE: Adam Sandler stars in this first original telemovie made under the Netflix banner, under the idea that Netflix, which knows how many streaming viewers watch Sandler’s movie canon on its network, is certain they’ll watch anything of his. If so, this is the perfect test of that theory. Sandy Wexler is based on Sandy Wernick, Adam Sandler’s real-life manager for the past three decades, and set in the mid-1990s, when he discovers Courtney Clarke, a talented singer played by Jennifer Hudson. The film features cameos by Chris Rock, Conan O’Brien, Henry Winkler and others, all of whom reminisce about “Sandy” at a party setting, recalling his quirks, clients and such. In style and structure, it’s a clear ripoff of Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose, but that film was funny. In Sandy Wexler, the few laughs are as random as they are sporadic, and come not from the leading man, but from tiny bits of business contributed by Colin Quinn, Kevin James, and, as an oversexed neighbor also named Sandy, Jane Seymour. In one scene, she tries to seduce Sandler’s Sandy while her very infirm husband watches in horror from the next bed. He’s played by the real Sandy Wernick, which means there are three Sandys in that one scene. Isn’t that funny? No? Neither, for the most part, is this telemovie – but as a business deal, it’s interesting, and much more successful.

 

 
 
 
 
 
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