By Robert Scucci
| Published
Before Adam Sandler embarked on his five-year stint with Saturday Night Live, he starred in his first feature-length film, 1989’s Going Overboard. After viewing this film for the first time, I wonder how he ever found more work in comedy in the first place. Going Overboard has no plot, no real sense of conflict, and no jokes in the sense that words were said in a funny tone but nobody in the room with me was laughing when they were spoken.
So Cringeworthy It’s Impressive
Going Overboard attempts to tell a story about an aspiring stand-up comic working as a waiter on a cruise ship named Shecky Moskowitz (Adam Sandler). Trying to charm his way into an opening set for Dickie Diamond (Scott LaRose), the ship’s resident funnyman, Shecky has no luck because Dickie is not only an insult comic of the highest order, he’s also a total jerk when he’s not on stage (surprise, surprise).
Everything changes for Shecky when Dickie gets locked inside one of the restrooms after his hat blows overboard, leading the cruise staff and patrons to believe that he was thrown off the ship and lost to the sea. After an unceremonious funeral, Shecky is approached by King Neptune (Billy Zane), who gives him a pep talk about the power of laughter. As expected, Shecky bombs while doing crowd work with a young Billy Bob Thornton dressed as a construction worker, and his friend Bob (Tim Hodges) further discourages him by telling him that comedians are sad, pathetic people.
Oh Yeah, One More Thing
If the above plot rundown for Going Overboard doesn’t sound compelling enough to get you to stream it for free, there’s also a B story about General Noriega (Burt Young), the de facto ruler of Panama from 1983 to 1989, sending dimwitted mercenaries to the cruise ship because one of the women in the beauty pageant taking place on the cruise made fun of his odor.
While these two disparate stories play out, Adam Sandler continually breaks the fourth wall by looking straight into the camera a la Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and letting the audience know what’s going on (as if they needed his help), but there’s a huge problem with this narrative choice: other characters notice that he’s doing it, but still never fully address it. On several occasions, Shecky’s friend, Bob, asks him who he’s talking to, and Shecky points to the camera, stating that “we’re making a movie.”
But now that I think about it, Adam Sandler reminding me that Going Overboard is a movie isn’t necessarily a bad thing because by the film’s second act I was drooling out of both sides of my mouth, my left leg was twitching, and my wife had to stuff my wallet in my mouth so I wouldn’t choke on my own tongue.
How Did He Get More Gigs?
There’s one takeaway that I have after watching Going Overboard, and it’s that Adam Sandler must be really approachable and great to work with. I can’t think of any other reason why he’d be given a second chance after his film debut was so justifiably poorly received. Today, we all know that Sandler has undeniable acting chops that can be seen in films like Punch-Drunk Love and Uncut Gems, but if Going Overboard was the proof of concept that got his career started, it makes me wonder why he wasn’t finished before ever making his way to SNL.
As of this writing, you can stream Going Overboard for free on Tubi.
Leave a Reply