The Cobbler

A long long time ago, in a decade called the 90´s, came a man who never wanted to grow up. He is known as Adam Sandler, and he wanted to teach us 2 things.

1. Playing with yourself is much more fun than reading a book.
2. Alcohol can help you sleep with anyone, even with your uncle Sam.

He did have more things to teach us, but i think this pretty much says it all. I realise some people love this guy, while many hate him. I personally only enjoy a few of his films. My personal favourites are called Reign Over Me, and Happy Gilmore of course. I have not seen all of his releases, but the ones i have seen lately have not been that good. One was even so bad, i wanted to burn it, named Grown Ups 2. The worst sequel of all time, seriously. If someone recommend this film to you, i suggest you grab a baseball bat and beat the shit out of them. After several quite dull releases, and the same romantic comedy concept that he already done a couple of times, i was hoping that he would do something different. I have seen that a new film called Pixels, is coming out later this year. While watching the trailer of Pixels, you realise this is a mix of video games with influences from disaster action films. Oh wait, he is also working as a producer on Dirty Joe 2 ( Yep, there is a sequel coming ) I have no idea if this will be any good, but i will probably see it eventually. Recently i heard about one of Sandler´s latest films called The Cobbler. I did check out the trailer, just to get a glimpse of what this could be. Considering he have made more bad films, than good films, is The Cobbler finally a good release from Adam Sandler, or is this another film that should be flushed down your toilet ?

In New York city , in the year 1903, a group of jewish men gather to discuss a big problem. A man knon as Gregerman is causing trouble, and have been running their businesses out. The jewish men go to the cobbler Pinchas Simkin ( Donnie Keshawarz ), with the shoes from Gregerman. Pinchas go down to the basement of his shop, using a special stitching machine
to fix the shoes. His son Herschel ( Ethan Khusidman ) walks in, and his father want to tell him why this stitching machine is so special. In present day, Max Simkin ( Adam Sandler ) works as the cobbler in the shop. He have stayed in the shop, because this shop have survived in their family generations. His neighbour, a barbershop owner Jimmy ( Steve Buscemi ), want to see Max date someone, to find a good woman. Max is not very interested in this at the moment, just trying to make the shop survive. Max lives at home with his sick mother Sarah Simkin ( Lynn Cohen ), taking care of her and helping her when he can. One day, at the cobbler shop, Max get a customer by the name of Leon Ludlow ( Method Man ) who want to have his shoes fixed, until the shop is closed. When the shoe stitching machine breaks, he only have one option left to get the shoes fixed. Using the old stitching machine in the basement. As he waits, and Leon is not showing up, Max decide to try the shoes just for fun. It seems that the stitching machine is magical, and for each couple of shoes that machine have fixed, you can become that person who own the shoes. Max decide to try on all kinds of shoes, to have fun being other people. There is a woman he is interested in, Taryn ( Kim Cloutier ). She comes into his store to get her boyfriend Emilianos ( Dan Stevens ) shoes fixed. This is a perfect oppertunity for Max to pretend to be Emiliano by using his shoes, after the stitching machine. Once he use this power to find happiness, he also get himself into a lot of trouble.


I know that people want to see poop comedies, so this will never stop as long as audiences want to see people poop in their pants. I might have laughed when i was 15 years old, today i want more original comedies. Adam Sandler have proved himself that he can act, especillaly in Reign Over Me. What surprises me with The Cobbler, is that there is actually a more serious tone here, at least in the beggining of the film. In the first 16 minutes, we actually get to see Adam Sandler do a different character, a jewish shoe maker. If he could have stayed there, and still do some intelligent humour, i would have been fine. Suddenly everything changes when he put on shoes and become the people who owns the shoes. The biggest problem with this is that The Cobbler is not that funny to watch. I laughed more in That´s My Boy, and that was a stupid, but at least more funny film. It is a bit better than some of his films like Blended, because you can tell they tried to make a more serious film. I like the idea of being able to become other people, just by walking in their shoes. But i would have wanted more funny ideas on how to take advantage of being other people. Not over the top Sandler that we are used to see, but in a more intelligent way. Director Thomas McCarthy have directed 3 really good films in the past, The Station Agent, The Visitor and Win Win, so we know he can deliver quality. The Cobbler has to be his worst film so far, if we compare to his previous films. This is such a shame, because if he would have made this film different, with a much more intelligent plot, we could have had the best Sandler film for many years. Nice to see Steve Buscemi as The Barbeshop owner, his role may not be big, but he does at least make an effort to give us a character we can relate to. I would still say that The Cobbler is at least an improvment, compared to films like Grown Ups 2. You can tell that he at least tried to do something different, unfortunately it does not work. I recently read that this is a major box office bomb, to be honest Grown Ups 2 should have been instead of this film. Maybe Sandler will come back one day with a film that proves his acting skills, like in Reign Over Me. I am not giving up on him, until then i suggest you go rent Reign On Me, or even watch it on Netflix or any other streaming site.

Rating: DD