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Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on November 10, 2000, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Be advised that, this being a FANGORIA site and all, this review will address Little Nicky more as a horror/comedy than as an Adam Sandler vehicle. Sandler’s fans might dig it more than this critic did; I’m not a huge fan of the guy, but I have been amused by some of his previous films. This time, though, he takes on a premise rife with subversive possibilities that mostly go unexplored.
It doesn’t help that Little Nicky is slapdash even by the standards of Sandler’s filmography. A deep and complex plot and rigorously disciplined direction certainly aren’t requirements of lowbrow comedy, but this one really feels like it was filmed from a first-draft script. The basic plot is promising enough: Sandler’s Nicky, the son of Satan (Harvey Keitel) himself, must travel to Earth to reclaim his two villainous brothers (Rhys Ifans and Tommy “Tiny” Lister Jr.), who are ticked off at being denied a chance to take over as rulers of hell. While they spread all sorts of demonic mischief through New York City, Nicky, guided by a talking bulldog named Beefy (voice of Robert Smigel), fumbles his way through encounters with not-unexpected supporting characters like a gay actor (Allen Covert) he moves in with, a couple of metalheads (Peter Dante and Jonathan Loughran) who come to worship him, a crazed religious zealot (Quentin Tarantino) and a sweet girl (Patricia Arquette) with whom he falls in love.
There are inspired moments here and there (I especially liked the jokes involving Regis Philbin and the pop group Chicago), but director Steven Brill and the writers (Tim Herlihy, Brill and Sandler) don’t develop a story so much as throw ideas for comic scenes at the wall and see what sticks. Unfortunately, not enough of the scenes or ideas are funny enough, and don’t take sufficient advantage of the comic possibilities of Satan’s offspring on Earth. Instead of anything truly daring and dark, we get a glut of sniggering sex and bodily-function jokes—which, as we all know by know, the MPAA is a lot easier on (a flash of breast in a serious film like Almost Famous gets an R, but a running gag here about a demon with boobs on his head gets a PG-13).
Anyone who’s enjoyed the better supernatural comedies of recent years will likely smell the whiff of missed opportunity here. The idea of Satan’s influence overrunning the city isn’t handled nearly as well as it was in The Day of the Beast, nor are Dante and Loughran’s characters a patch on Santiago Segura’s metal maniac from that film. And the combination of low comedy and hi-tech FX (good work by KNB and various digital houses) won’t quite put anyone in mind of Ghostbusters—though you may well think of Beetlejuice as Teddy Castellucci’s score strenuously apes Danny Elfman.
Of course, the movie was designed as a Sandler vehicle first and foremost, and he does have his moments. But at this point in his career, he can and should move on from substituting a speech impediment (here, the result of being whacked in the face with a shovel) for a well-thought-out comic character. Adding to the movie’s disappointment is the underutilization of the supporting cast. As the movie zigzags among its subplots, few of them are given enough time to make an impact, and the running-gag characters played by Tarantino and Rodney Dangerfield (as Satan’s randy father) aren’t given anything especially funny to do.
Only two performers get a significant chance to shine. One is Ifans as the more prominent of Nicky’s brothers; the actor combines humor and sardonic menace well, and when the script finally narrows its focus to his direct conflict with Nicky, the movie achieves a level of comic tension it has previously lacked. Also noteworthy is the “performance” of Beefy the bulldog, an effective marriage of animal training, Rhythm & Hues’ “talking” digital FX and Smigel’s voice talents. It’s a tad disappointing that Smigel doesn’t apply his funny Triumph the Insult Comic Dog characterization here, though in the end it’s understandable; faced with this underachieving film, Triumph might poop on it.
