Every once in a while, you spot a trailer that grabs you and makes you ask 'Hold on, is it really that guy in it? That guy from that thing? Doing this?' And, I have to admit, Uncut Gems was one of those, just on sheer virtue of being the first film with Adam Sandler that actually got my attention. Oh, I know he's done a couple other things I heard didn't completely waste your time, like Punch Drunk Love, but as someone who knows him from the likes nineties 'classic' Billy Madison, and more recently guff like Pixels, it still felt a bit jarring--albeit maybe not in a bad way. So, did it satisfy my curiosity, or does it extinguish precious minutes of earthly existence like Jack And Jill did?
For the most part, it's not half bad fortunately. In many ways, amusingly, I found it a pretty dark take on what I remember as Sandler's usual role--namely the happy go lucky impulsive schmuck who's also a bit of a loser. Here, he is impulsive and a loser, who also happens to be a gambling addict in trouble with mobsters, on bad terms with his family, and not the most pleasant guy to be around. As Howard Ratner, Sandler manages to combine the right amount of New York wiseguy-ness and abrasiveness for a character that, while you won't exactly cheer on, you'll at least want to see where he goes from here and just how he can dig himself out--or dig himself even deeper.
The director duo of the Sadfie brothers are also clearly big into basketball, with star Kevin Garnett playing a pretty big role in it--combine that with some rappers making an appearance and you've got a little verisimilitude, and the right amount of presence to bounce off Sandler's squawking. Eric Bogosian as the loan shark on Howard's tail makes for some entertaining screentime as he bounces from dragging our antihero into a car, to awkwardly being part of a family dinner.
Now, with the character ids clashing up against each other, there is a lot of overlapping swearing in New York brogues. A lot of it. If you're not fancying plenty of 'gimme the fawkin' money' or 'fawk you ya fawking asswhole', all trying to talk over each other, you might not find it the best experience. And while Sandler's character is upfrontly meant to be something of a scumbag this time, there are moments of line-crossing where sympathy might be destroyed quicker than Eight Crazy Nights destroyed what credibility Roy Schneider had left. Though, on the other hand, he does go through enough crap that you might just find cathartic if so.
With lots of black comedy and some pretty tense sequences, combined with an ending I honestly wasn't really expecting, I found this one worth a watch--I got myself a theater viewing, learning literally just after that it's primarily on Netflix. I certainly don't regret the cinema viewing, with there being some visual shots that are pretty impressive looking on the big screen--and the standoffs do feel much more intense there. Still, I do have to comment on what I feel is a somewhat uncomfortable and increasing trend of shoving anything that's not a franchise or a Disney offering onto Netflix--maybe that's just the unfortunate laws of current media economics, but it also might make understand the frustration of the likes of Scorsese over this. I wouldn't call this one an unmissable gem, but it does have enough shine to warrant a watch.
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