Written by Adam Sandler's longtime sidekick, Allen Covert (he's appeared in every Sandler flick bar Billy Madison and Bulletproof) Grandma's Boy
follows 35-year-old Alex (Covert) the world's oldest video game tester
at Brainasium, the company responsible for the worldwide gaming phenom
of "Eternal Death Slayer" (he's known as "Grey Bush" by his
co-workers), but he's also the best. But when his roommate
fails to pay the rent for six months because he's spent every last cent
at Madame Wu's Filipino Palace ("They're not hookers, they're massage
therapists!" - "Yeah, they massage your cock for money...I think they
call them hookers?"), Alex unfortunately finds himself on the street.
His friendly dealer Dante can't let Alex crash because he has a guard
lion ("Anyone can get past a dog, but no-one fucks with a lion")
arriving any day. His friend Jeff (Co-Writer and absolute comic find,
Nick Swardson) agrees to put him up, until an unfortunate incident
involving Alex, a female action figure and Jeff's mum forces him to
move in with his grandmother (Everybody Loves Raymond's, Doris Roberts) and her friends Grace (Partridge Family mum, Shirley Jones) and Bea (Sandler fans will recognise her as the "Mister Mister" lady from Happy Gilmore). In
fact, the first 20 minutes of the film is spent trying to work out
where each person is from (extremely annoying when watching with a
group with people yelling out "Oh, she's from Raymond...Isn't that the girl from Freaks and Geeks?" - Shutup and watch the friggin movie!). The strength of Grandma's Boy comes from a dubious mixture of things. Much like 40 Year Old Virgin,
it successfully mixes a solid plotline, improvised conversations,
countless quotable lines, and the absurd (which can be succinctly
summed up by a phrase uttered towards the end of the film "Drive
Monkey, Drive!"). But the driving force here is the ensemble nature of the film. Unlike your usual Happy Madison fodder - the dismal Joe Dirt and Deuce Bigalow -
everyone get's to throw in an equal amount of jokes. From Covert, to
Dante, to Doris Roberts and even the most minimal of side characters
like Dante's Zimbabwiann Tribe friend, everyone gets a chance to take a
crack at a gag - and the film is much stronger for it. However, the real discoveries of Grandma's Boy
are Co-Writer Nick Swardson and "Gaming Genius" JP (played to nerdy
perfection by Joel Moore). Swardson was actually brought into the
project and given free reign to write himself a character - which
became Jeff who refers to his parents as his "room-mates" - and is
utterly hilarious. Moore, too, is brilliant as the odd gaming prodigy
JP whose lonely lifestyle has led to a split personality which leads
him to believe he is half robot. I'm not exactly sure how to
really explain the enjoyability factor of this movie. If someone came
up to you and said "Hey, let's watch a flick that did so poorly at the
US box office (a total gross of $6 million) that it's been shoved
straight onto DVD", there's a good chance your immediate reaction would
be, in the words of JP, "Adios Turd Nugget". The best way
to describe it's appeal is by simply telling you that I have literally
watched this sucker 5 times in 5 days, each time with a different group
of friends, all of whom have been quoting the flick endlessly since -
and it's still funny to me! This is the kind of comedy Sandler
should be making - and is capable of making, if you've ever heard his
profanity laden comedy CD's - if he wasn't so concerned about keeping
his own films in the realm of PG. DVD
Extras Interestingly
enough, despite not getting a run in Australian cinemas, this 2-Disc
DVD package is pretty much flawless (as a general rule of thumb, if a
film does poorly, extras are usually not included). The
featurettes are far from your usual DVD fluff pieces - taking a good
look at Dante's off screen relationship with his monkey, with a spot on
Covert's "Whack It" scene among the best. The deleted scenes
contain just as many improvised corkers as seen in the flick itself,
ultimately making this one of the more watchable Special Features discs
I've seen. Quality. Conclusion:
Movie 100% Extras: 80% 
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