Happy Gilmore | Teen Ink

Happy Gilmore

April 29, 2024
By wood BRONZE, Hartland, Wisconsin
wood BRONZE, Hartland, Wisconsin
1 article 0 photos 0 comments


When you picture a golf movie, you could probably expect a story about a young kid making  his way to the PGA tour. Now picture that—but include violence at every turn. Happy Gilmore is a movie that turns every golf movie upside down. 

 

Starring Adam Sandler as Happy Gilmore and his mentor Cubbbs Peterson ( Carl Weathers), The movie starts out with Happy wanting to fulfill his dream of becoming a hockey player, however there is one issue—he sucks. Remember when I said there was a lot of violence in this movie? yeah that's shown early when he beats up the hockey coach when he doesn’t make the team. 


Now forced to live with his Grandma ( Francis bay), She and Happy face a major delma—the IRS is taking her house as she didn’t pay her taxes. But when the movers start taking her furniture out, Happy discovers that he can hit a golf ball very far, as it flies through the neighborhood crashing into a window, knocking an old lady off the second story of her house. With Happy and his Grandma being $275,000 in the hole, Happy decides to ditch his dream sport and becomes a golfer.

 

 


Adams Sandler’s classic humor is the focus of the movie, from Happy being a clueless character to the funny voices and  the goofy dialogue. An example is when Happyout drives Shooter and Mocks “ Somebody’s closer”.Adam sandler has adopted this type of humor into many of his movies like  Grown Ups and Water boy. Sandler includes many twists and turns that blindside the viewer with small, out of the blue jokes or remarks. One classic use of Adam’s humor is used in the dialogue between Happy's Grandma and the Nursing home Orderly (Ben Stiller): “ My fingers hurt, Orderly, “Oh, well, now your back's gonna hurt, 'cause you just pulled landscaping duty. Anybody else's fingers hurt?... I didn't think so.”

 

 

 


Now at this point when I first saw this movie, I was worried that this movie was just going to be some maniac hitting a golf ball far, winning, and beating up anyone who mocks him. But enter Shooter Mcgavin(Christopher Mcdonald) who, during the movie, is the best golfer on tour. The movie then satisfies non golfers by including a humorous storyline that circles around Doug Thompson the commissioner( Dennis Dugan), Happy, and Shooter and Virginia Venit ( Julie  Bowen). There is deep controversy if Happy should be allowed to play golf or if he should be taken off the course. We see Happy’s home life and how he is still struggling to make the money to buy his Grandma's house. Meanwhile Shooter is doing everything he can to aggravate the short tempered Gilmore, by talking about his grandma 


 The classic cliche ending where the hero is the good guy even though he beats up or cusses at everyone within a country mile, is very bland and generic, however the way Dennis Dugen and Sandler wrote the movie, it fit what they where going for which was a violent, humorous ending, so I was fine with it . But there were some parts that could have been taken out. I believe they were put in to slow down the movie as “Happy Gilmore ''. is a relatively short movie at 1 hour and 33 minutes . I also think that this movie could thrive if they included more of a plot and stuck with it. After Happy’s grandma lost her house they kind of sprinkled Happy’s personal life in a bit but it was the bare minimum. And again with the low run time maybe they could Have gone into detail on Chubbs or Shooter.

 

The movie to me balances humor and actual golf nicely, cateringing to golf fans and non golf fans;The characters are paired nicely, Such as Having the good guy in Happy and the bad guy in Shooter. Mentors to Happy such as his Grandma, Virginia Venit and Chubbs Peterson,They all balance eachother out with their diverse personalities.



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