That’s My Boy: So Awful, It’s Awful

Years ago when a younger Andy Samberg decided he wanted to be famous, he sat himself in a circle of candles in a dark room and spoke a series of forbidden words to summon the Dark Lord. As the half-man, half-goat embodiment of pure evil stood whinnying in the soft, chiaroscuro lighting, the ancient beast spoke.

 "Why have you summoned me here?" the guttural voice inquired.

"I wish to be famous," Samberg replied. "And I would give my soul if that's what it takes."

With the snap of his fingers, a dusty, black book materialized out of thin air in front of the Dark Lord and opened itself to a clean, untouched page. Offering the book to Samberg with a quill seemingly dipped in blood, a malevolent smile curled itself onto the Dark Lord's face as the young comedian scribbled his name, never to be erased. With a puff of smoke, the book and the quill were gone.

"Fame and fortune shall be yours, Mr. Samberg, but be warned – someday I shall return to collect what's mine and the absence of your soul will manifest itself in a way you will not expect." And with that, a strong gust of wind came out of nowhere, extinguishing the candles and leaving Samberg alone in the dark, accompanied only by the lingering cackle of an unearthly voice that was fading into the ether. When Samberg got up and turned on the lights, the Dark Lord was gone.

This story is obviously anecdotal, but in my mind, it's the most sensible explanation for how a talented, young comedian like Andy Samberg, who has already proven himself a capable comedic leading man in Hot Rod, would wind up attaching himself to yet another cinematic atrocity from the creatively deficient Happy Madison crew.

Plot? Yeah, in between the Budweiser product placement, the juvenile potty humor and the implications of lust after the elderly, That's My Boy has some semblance of what screenwriting books would consider a plot. Years ago, barely pubescent high schooler Donny Berger (Justin Weaver) knocked up his math teacher, Mary McGarricle (Eva Amurri Martino), and not only became the toast of his school, but also a national celebrity. Donny not only made the talk show rounds, but he also became a regular on teeny bopper magazine covers and even struck a six-figure deal for a TV movie of his life that would make Vili Fualaau jealous. If you don't understand that reference, it's because victims of statutory rape are only ever celebrated in bad comedy films.

While Donny's Mary Kay Letourneau was sentenced to 30 years in jail, Donny was forced to raise his child, Han Solo Berger, on his own. Now decades older, the two men are on opposite ends of both the income and pride spectrums. Han Solo is now Todd (Andy Samberg), a hotshot hedge fund manager engaged to a harpy of a woman, Jamie (Leighton Meester), whereas Donny (Adam Sandler) is still a victim of statutory rape, only older, broke and owing the government $43,000 in back taxes. Facing jail time, Donny has been promised $50,000 by a sleazy talk show host if he can engineer a reunion between him, Ms. McGarricle and Todd and thus, he heads to Cape Cod to try and play dad during the engagement party.

Much has already been rightfully written about how truly awful That's My Boy is and I'm not entirely sure what I can add to the discussion. At this point, there's likely nobody who is on the fence about whether to see this brain dead Happy Madison stillbirth and if you're reading this review, it's probably out of morbid curiosity about what I have to say about it. Rather than give too in-depth of a review (the film does not deserve even the words I have already dedicated to it), I will instead provide a list of unpleasant activities I would rather do than to sit through this vomitous collection of images again:

– Have cavities filled

– Get an open wound stitched up without anesthesia

– Cut an entire lawn with a pair of scissors while wearing several fur coats at the height of summer

– Have the aforementioned stitches removed

– Watch Bucky Larson

Yes, both Todd Bridges and Vanilla Ice both shamelessly pander for a paycheck in That's My Boy and Adam Sandler not once, but twice sexually pleasures himself to a 90-year old women. But the film's greatest crime, greater even than soiling the good names of Will Forte, James Caan and Susan Sarandon, is that it asks the viewer to accept the idea that statutory rape is not only hilarious, but also something worth striving for. The fact that we're supposed to believe that Donny is elevated to the level of national celebrity because he was taken advantage of by his teacher is the kind of canyon-like leap of logic that seems to have been thought up by drunks to appeal exclusively to drunks. Frankly, I'm simply astounded that during all the tantrums Todd throws about how his father psychologically destroyed him for life – "you let me eat nothing but candy," "you made me drive you home when I was 8 years old," "you left me at school for 5 hours and I shit in my pants" – not once does Todd vocalize umbrage with the fact that he is the product of an unholy, disgusting union.

Sandler and the Happy Madison crew waved bye-bye to respect and pride long ago, but I'm constantly amazed by what seems to be a single-mindedness in their determination to continuously lower the bar. Years from now, I can only hope that Sandler reveals a bet made between he and Nick Swardson as to who can be responsible for the most abhorrently stupid comedy and should that day ever come, I'll breathe a sigh of relief and take comfort in the fact that the man responsible for the slapstick glory of Happy Gilmore did have some lingering brain cells the whole time. Until then, I think it's best that every celluloid print, every DVD and Blu-ray copy of That's My Boy be give the E.T. for Atari treatment and be buried deep in a hole in the middle of the desert never to be seen again.