Happy Gilmore (91 Minutes)
"There is no better feeling than sinking a hole-in-one at mini golf, pointing a finger gun and exclaiming: “Shootah!”
I have to say, I’m a little nervous to be covering such a classic. In some ways it feels too soon, like I’m getting my training wheels off and heading down a steep ramp at the same time. In other ways, it feels like I’ve be preparing for this moment my entire life. Happy Gilmore was a formative piece of my childhood that taught me the pleasure of finding community in a film. It is the first movie I can remember quoting with people outside of my family. Quoting it made me instantly cooler in some social circles, and re-watching it became a way to bond with new friends. If I maintained rankings—which I absolutely do not because I am weirdly forgetful, ask me to name my favorite bands and I’ll just stare at you like you asked me to do it in Italian—Happy Gilmore would be in my top three 90-minute movies of all time. No question about it.
You know where this is going by now, so, I gotta do the Quick Plot Overview! It pains me a little to think that some of you have not seen this film, but I won’t shame you. I understand you cannot simply be a part of every moment in pop culture all the time. Maybe one day I will out myself on here and share a list of all the classic films I haven’t seen. But not today.
I love this opening, it sets you up to know exactly what you’re walking into. Also sorry that this is in German???
Quick Plot Overview! Happy Gilmore follows the transformation of its title character from kind- of-crappy hockey player to golf wunderkind. Happy is convinced he will one day be a professional hockey player based solely on the “greatest slap shot” his father taught him as a kid--even though he can’t skate for shit. When his grandmother’s (Frances Bay) house is repossessed by the IRS he has to find a way to make cash quickly, which he discovers he can do by using his slap shot to hit golf balls on driving ranges. Chubbs Peterson, a golf great (played by football great Carl Weathers) believes in Happy’s natural talent and gets him on the golf tour. Virginia Venit (Julie Bowen) helps keep him there by being a voice of calm reason. And everyone’s favorite to win the tournament, Shooter McGavin, (Christopher McDonald) is determined to get him off of it.
This is a tight script. By the 15-minute mark Happy is already out of skates and on the golf course trying to hustle uptight golfers. And by 30 minutes we are introduced to all our key characters. The Love Interest. The Antagonist/Villain. The Mentor. Other than Happy, the characters don’t get – or need – a lot of backstory. They can be summed up in a couple of sentences and then are otherwise defined by their interactions mostly with Happy and rarely with each other. They revolve around our Hero.
Chubbs, for example, is visually introduced as being bored as hell teaching golf lessons. Later we learn he has one hand that was lost to an alligator in Florida and that his mother thought golf would be a safer sport for him play. Effective and simple. From there, everything else we need to know about Chubbs comes from his interactions with Happy. The same goes for every other supporting character, and we don’t waste any time moving through the story. This is something I miss about comedy that I think has been lost in recent years. We don’t need a complex plot, complex characters, or a complex theme. We need those things to be super clear and super stable so that the jokes can land, and so that we can suspend our disbelief when it matters.
I understand, appreciate, and oftentimes enjoy the improv style of comedies that exist now. But there’s something to be said for following a script and not letting your actors ramble for 2+ hours. It is funny that I say that when I recently came across information in my research that says Judd Apatow did the rewrite of this script uncredited. Apatow, for those of you who don’t know, basically created and has dominated that improv style of comedy movies since the early aughts. I guess if I squint my ears (is that a thing) I can hear the makings of future Apatow magic.
With that, we have to get to the comedy. The jokes land naturally, the pacing of them is even and constant like a beating heart, and they are delivered by actors who care about the work they’re doing. It is so depressing to compare this to more recent Sandler work like Hubie Halloween which I turned off after ten minutes because it was so unbearable. When I think about it, Happy Gilmore is successful because Adam Sandler is playing a character you could consider the straight man. Sure, he has rage issues and is a bit of a character himself BUT he’s interacting with those clear cut – and kind of bizarre – group of supporting characters. Chubbs has a wooden hand. Shooter McGavin (who is getting his own paragraph after this!) is an egomaniac. His grandmother’s orderly has turned a nursing home into a sweatshop. His old boss walks around with a nail in his head. Hell, even Bob Barker is throwing punches and kicking him in the face! Sandler doesn’t do a voice or a bit—he’s an everyman just trying to make some cash and save his grandmother’s house—and he’s at his best.
Anyone who has seen this movie has a favorite quote or line that they use in everyday conversation. I feel like I have 172. You see, growing up as a Millennial, we didn’t have fancy technology available to us for long car rides. No laptops, cell phones, tablets. Some minivans had VHS players in them but you had to come from, like, “We-Have-A-Camper Money” for that. To entertain ourselves, my younger brother Jonathan and I would put on performances of Happy Gilmore for our parents and older brother. Yes, you heard this correctly. We would do the entire movie VERBATIM in the car for our family. This is what we did for fun. We would even use our stuffed animals to act it out. That is such a fond memory for me. You see now why I was so excited to be writing about this movie—it really did play a big role in my childhood. I think I speak for everyone in my family when I say there is no better feeling than sinking a hole-in-one at mini golf, pointing a finger gun and exclaiming: “Shootah!”
That brings us to Shooter McGavin.
I love watching movies over and over again not just for the comfort aspect but because I always notice or learn something new. In this case, I realized for the first time that Shooter McGavin is the heart of this movie. I guess I knew this in my subconscious because typing it out I’m like “No shit, duh” and I am sure you’re thinking the same thing, BUT the thought never explicitly crossed my mind until now. Christopher McDonald’s delivery of every single line is perfection and his Shooter is the perfect foil to Sandler’s Happy. I have always loved Shooter’s deep insecurity masked under a big ego that is played rather subtlety for a 90-minute comedy. The inherent smugness that is just McDonald’s face goes a long way here and it is hard to imagine anyone else in the role. Though online trivia says Bruce Campbell auditioned which is just wild but fun to imagine, right?
Of course, this movie was poorly received by critics—I’m noticing a big trend in my work—but it didn’t stop from it having great commercial success and becoming fuel for the Adam Sandler machine that is now wildly out of control. I understand that the movie is a bit—messy. The editing is all over the place and when you watch it as many times as I have you notice new mistakes every time. (What is continuity anyway?) It is certainly not a “film” that has any beauty to render you speechless or creative cinematography to whisk your imagination away. The movie is a vehicle for jokes and that’s it. Happy Gilmore is the Tostito of movies. It’s there to get the good stuff shoveled into your mouth. And why is that so bad? We all love Tostitos!
I love that you you used to perform the movie on road trips for your family! So great. This film is hilarious, for sure Sandler’s best (with Billy Madison coming in 2nd on my list). You are absolutely right that the script is tight and well crafted, and because of that, makes it funnier. I never understood why comedies aren’t given more respect since it’s so hard to make a great one! I had never heard that about Apatow doing an uncredited rewrite, but since they were such great friends that make sense.
I have no words. It is the BEST. Period.