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By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
There are few actors in the world quite as divisive as Adam Sandler. Every now and then, he’ll go out of his way to prove what a great performer he can be in more serious roles, including the poignant Punch-Drunk Love and the downright harrowing Uncut Gems. Mostly, though, Sandler sticks to the kinds of comedy that made him famous on Saturday Night Live: that means silly voices, broad humor, and gimmicks taken well past their breaking point. It doesn’t always work, especially with recent comedies like Hubie Halloweenwhich I maintain should be classified as a war crime.
When Sandler is bad, he’s bad enough to take the entire film with him. It goes in reverse, though: when Sander is really good, he can elevate even the stupidest of films into box office gold. That’s the case with The Waterboya 1998 gem about a backwoods waterboy discovering he is inexplicably skilled at college football. Is the movie dumb? Like, room temperature IQ dumb. Is it filled with stupid jokes, including a bizarre running gag character from eternal Sandler +1, Rob Schneider? That’s a Texas-size 10-4, good buddy! If those aren’t dealbreakers, though, you’ll likely enjoy this raunchy, politically incorrect laugh riot, now streaming on Tubi.
When Boy Meets Water
The premise of The Waterboy is that Adam Sandler plays the stuttering manchild who serves as the water boy for the University of Louisiana football team. He loses that gig thanks to a jerk of a coach, and he ends up slinging water for a rival football team: the South-Central Louisiana State University Mud Dogs. However, it doesn’t take long before this new team’s coach realizes that his waterboy is an idiot savant when it comes to football. He puts Sandler’s character on the field, transforming him almost instantly into a local legend.
The waterboy enjoys his newfound fame, but he runs into trouble balancing his new responsibilities with his old life. For example, his childhood crush (played by Fairuza Balk) wants to date him, but that doesn’t fly with his domineering mother (played by a very game Kathy Bates). Plus, he constantly has to worry about pleasing his coach, who is played to hangdog perfection by Henry Winkler. As with all sports comedies, The Waterboy culminates in a showdown between rival teams that (one way or another) will transform our hero’s life forever.
Deliciously Dumb Humor
When I rewatched The Waterboy for the first time in over a decade, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed its deliciously dumb humor. I was still in high school when this film premiered, and all of the goofy jokes still resonated with my inner child. Some of them aren’t even jokes so much as silly things said in silly ways, like when the Colonel Sanders-looking professor keeps repeating “medulla oblongata” until Sandler screams like a pig and charges. My personal favorite is when the waterboy’s mother dismisses wisdom from a college textbook, shouting, “That’s nonsense, I invented electricity. Ben Franklin is the Devil!”
Real talk? How much you cringed when you read that will determine whether or not you’ll like The Waterboy. Again, Sandler is notoriously divisive, and his style of comedy isn’t for everyone. But he was on an absolute tear of good films in the ‘90s, including Billy Madison, Happy Gilmoreand The Wedding Singer. The Waterboy arguably isn’t quite as good (or at least, as memeworthy) as some other films in the actor’s oeuvre, but it’s arguably Sandler at his most gloriously unhinged. If you’ve ever enjoyed singing along to his nonsense tunes or quoting Happy Gilmore to your hapless friends and family, you’ll likely love his performance as village idiot turned football icon.
The ’90s Most Quirked-Up White Boy
Adam Sandler is predictably solid in The Waterboy: he knows his limits as an actor and, within those confines, knows how to make us laugh with a perfect mixture of physical comedy and stuttered punchlines. The real surprise of the movie, though, is just how many Hollywood greats joined the cast. Henry Winkler is great as the waterboy’s pseudo-father figure, and his more understated humor makes him a kind of straight man to Sandler’s wackiness. Meanwhile, Kathy Bates steals scenes from Sandler by embodying a very persistent (and often very accurate) Southern stereotype: the domineering, overly religious mother. Seriously, watching The Waterboy is worth it just for her scenes alone.
There are some other wild surprises in The Waterboy cast, including Clint Howard as an idiotic football fan. Needless to say, Rob Schneider appears, making the most of a running gag that would eventually become perfect meme fodder (him screaming “You can do it!”). Perhaps the most surprising revelation of the cast is just how good Fairuza Balk is as Sandler’s love interest. Channeling some of her manic pixie scream girl energy from The Craftshe is absolutely captivating as a bad girl with a criminal past. Honestly, Balk should have been one of the biggest stars of the ‘90s and early aughts, and she makes a relatively minor role into one of the most memorable performances of the entire film.
Stream Today? You Can Do It!
In terms of humor, The Waterboy is a throwback to a simpler time. A politically incorrect time, too, which is why this movie could never be made today. Adam Sandler’s Bobby Boucher makes Forrest Gump look like a Mensa candidate, and the fact that we’re basically laughing at a special needs kid is admittedly a bit uncomfortable. If you can get past the somewhat offensive nature of the jokes, though, there’s a lot to love about The Waterboy. Bobby isn’t exactly a brain trust, but he’s effortlessly charming and innocently charismatic. Throw in some well-written gags, great physical humor, and a surprisingly smart script, and you’ve got a ‘90s comedy classic worth revisiting.
Ready to kick back with one of the raunchiest, funniest, and most influential comedies of yesteryear? You can currently stream The Waterboy for free on Tubi. Remember that with a movie his dumb, you should probably go ahead and pour yourself a drink before you grab the remote. Will it be a beer or a spirit? In honor of Bobby Boucher, there’s only one real option: a tall glass of high-quality H2O!
THE WATERBOY REVIEW SCORE
