OxfordPress.com

Grade: C+

Verdict: So-so Sandler.

Details: Starring Adam Sandler, Winona Ryder and John Turturro. Directed by Steven Brill. Rated PG-13 for mild sexual references and comic violence. One hour, 37 minutes.

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Review: Adam Sandler's slob appeal is undeniable. The trouble comes when his movies try sliding by on slob appeal, too. What's likable in Sandler — a kind of unassuming, take-me-as-I-am, goodhearted regular guy — comes off as lazy, sloppy and dull when it's spread over an entire movie.

In movies like “Billy Madison,” “The Waterboy” and Sandler's so-called chick flick, “The Wedding Singer,” the balance works — just enough of Sandler himself and just enough Sandler permeating everything else. But then there are movies like “Big Daddy” and “Little Nicky” — joyless, annoying vehicles for Sandler to fool around in.

His new comedy, “Mr. Deeds,” falls somewhere in between. It's sweet, harmless, dumb, occasionally funny and about as compelling as a fishing show.

The film is very loosely based on the Frank Capra/Gary Cooper classic, “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.” So loosely that you have to wonder if Sandler chose the title just to put critics in a huff. Capra's message was a populist social statement. Sandler's is much more contained: Deeds gets rich; Deeds gets dissed by greedy, elitist New Yorkers; Deeds teaches them a lesson and learns a few things as well.

Longfellow Deeds (Sandler) runs a pizzeria in the tiny New Hampshire town of Mandrake Falls. He's a low-key, uncomplicated guy, well-liked by everyone. The townsfolk even gather at his pizza joint to hear him read one of the poems he keeps submitting to Hallmark, in hopes of getting published.

All that changes when Deeds learns he's inherited $40 billion from a long lost uncle. The slick second-in-command (Peter Gallagher) at the media empire Deeds now controls arrives to take him to Manhattan, where he hopes to talk him into signing over his majority share of the stock.

He's not the only shark circling this schlumpy bumpkin. A tabloid TV show dispatches a reporter (Winona Ryder) to pose as an innocent small-town girl and get the dirt on the city's celebrity-of-the-week.

“Mr. Deeds” isn't very good, but it's reasonably good-natured (except about opera singers and people who write for The New Yorker). It's got a funny performance by John Turturro as a kind of stealth butler and an okay OK one by Ryder, who looks lovely but a little lost. (Sorta, how did I go from Daniel Day-Lewis and “The Crucible” to this?) Steve Buscemi continues his run for the Bill Murray of the early 21st century, showing up as a Deeds buddy with bulging Marty Feldman eyes.

And then there's the Sandler Mystique. Somewhere along the line, he discovered that it takes so little to make so many moviegoers happy. And that's what he gives them.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, (none)