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The Do-Over
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Wikipedia article
'The Do-Over' is a 2016 American buddy action comedy film directed by Steven Brill, and written by Kevin Barnett and Chris Pappas. The movie follows Charlie (David Spade) and Max (Adam Sandler) after Max fakes their deaths in order to start their lives anew. Things go awry when they discover that the dead men whose identities they have adopted were entangled in criminal activities. Paula Patton, Kathryn Hahn, and Luis Guzmn also star.
The film is the second in a four-film deal between Adam Sandler and Netflix. The film was released worldwide on Netflix on May 27, 2016.
Plot
Charlie is unhappily living in Florida with his materialistic wife, Nikki and her two unpleasant twin sons from her ex husband, Ted-O. He is a bank manager in a supermarket and Nikki is cheating on him with Ted-O. Charlie reunites with his old high school buddy (and FBI agent) Max at a high school reunion. They spend a weekend on a yacht Max rented, and Charlie feels young again.
Max blows up the yacht to fake their deaths. When Charlie regains consciousness, Max tells him they can now both start new, better lives. He confesses that he is not an FBI agent and is actually a coroner. This allowed him to use two unclaimed cadavers in place of them; Charlie is given the new identity of Dr. Ronald P. Fishman, and Max takes on the new identity of Butch Ryder. Initially appalled, Charlie soon realises he has no reason to return to his old life after witnessing his lackluster funeral, Nikki reconciling with Ted-O and that the bank have quickly replaced his job role. Max tells Charlie that he found a key in Butch's rectum, which Charlie as a bank manager determines it belongs to a safe deposit box in Puerto Rico.
Traveling to Puerto Rico, they access Butch's safe deposit box, which contains money and the keys to a mansion with a Ferrari. The duo relocate there, befriending and later having an orgy with neighbours Dawn and Joan during which Dawn reveals the original Butch and Ronald bought the mansion in a hurry, implying they were on the run from something.
They find out Ronald was married after seeing a picture of his wife on Butch's tablet. At the mansion, Max and Charlie are attacked by a group of assassins led by The Gymnast. They escape, and Max admits he's not a coroner, but actually a guidance counselor.
They return to the continental U.S. to find Ronald's widow, Heather at her home in Savannah, Georgia. Max and Charlie explain to her that Ronald was murdered and infer that Butch got Ronald entangled in criminal activity. Heather tells them that Ronald's study was broken into recently.
The trio head to a biker bar where Ronald and Butch used to meet up. At the bar, they learn from a biker, Dakota, that Butch had stage four cancer. Ronald had developed a "magic bullet" cancer treatment and they began conducting secret, non-FDA approved clinical trials, when Ronald's financier, Shecky, withdrew funding, Butch started robbing banks.
Dakota reveals that Ronald and Butch had an affair but is then killed by The Gymnast. The trio escape to Max's mother's house where they are stalked by Max's ex, Becca, and Charlie ends up having sex with Heather.
At Shecky's he reveals that his house was also broken into recently. The trio leave, determining the men who tried to kill them and broke into their homes wanted the cancer treatment formula. Charlie says they should forfeit the formula when they find it, which angers Max. While hacking Ronald's computer, Charlie discovers Max was one of Ronald's cancer patients. He also learns that Max has a young son with Becca, and realizes Max had been trying to recover the cure to save his own life.
Returning to Shecky's, Max thinks he is withholding the cure. Shecky has been shot, but before he dies, reveals the assassins were hired by Trojgaard, the world's largest chemotherapy company, to steal the cure and bury it. The Gymnast, still in the house, takes Max hostage.
Meanwhile, at Becca's, Charlie realises the Jenga app on Butch's tablet actually holds Ronald's cure. He attempts to call Max, but The Gymnast destroys Max's phone as he is tortured. Heather then arrives at Shecky's, telling Max that she not only accepted a fortune from Trojgaard to bury the formula when Ronald refused, but also that she was the one who killed Ronald and Butch.
Charlie calls Heather, and she claims Max killed Shecky. When they meet, Charlie sees through her lie, and punches her in the face, but she then holds him at gunpoint. Before she can shoot, Max, who had escaped The Gymnast after he accidentally electrocuted himself, knocks her down. Heather then points the gun at them both, but Becca shows up, beats her unconscious, and recovers the tablet. The police arrive, and when they draw their weapons, Becca accidentally throws the tablet into the bay as she puts up her hands.
The tablet suffers irreparable damage, but Charlie backed up the formula on a USB. The men are pardoned for their crimes when they offer the cancer treatment as a bargaining chip. Charlie disguises himself as a zombie and gets his revenge at Nikki, Ted-O and the twins. Charlie, Max, Becca, son and mother return to the mansion in Puerto Rico after Max is cured.
Cast
Production
Principal photography on the film began in Savannah, Georgia on July 7, 2015, and it ended on August 21, 2015.
Release
The film was released worldwide on Netflix on May 27, 2016.
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 9% based on 23 reviews, with an average rating of 3.17/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "A dunderheaded story of mistaken identity, 'The Do-Over' finds Adam Sandler and David Spade retreading old ground -- minus the comedic pep required to enliven the decidedly uninspired proceedings." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 22 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".
Keith Uhlich of 'The Hollywood Reporter' panned the film, and wrote: "it's clear that every Adam Sandler movie is dada of the high-concept, low-hanging-fruit variety, in which the Happy Madison stock company uses filmmaking (loosely termed) as an excuse to take an extended tropical vacation."
David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film a grade D- and called the film "atrocious in different ways than any of Adam Sandler's previous comedies". Ehrlich continued "more than two decades since Billy Madison minted Sandler as a leading man this restless innovator is still finding new methods of making bad movies. For years, weve been asking Adam Sandler to try harder. Weve been making a huge mistake."
Christian Holub of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a positive review: "The plot threads can be a little hard to follow, especially since most of them revolve around two unseen characters who are dead before the story even begins, but Sandler and Spades partnership gives the whole enterprise enough emotional grounding to make up for it."
References
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