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The long story is not cut short in this hilarious comedy. It is a cute but needlessly long-winded film, writes Ervell E. Menezes
THE remote, that modern magic gadget that can do whatever you want, is the subject of this hilarious comedy Click. Enter, Michael Newman (Adam Sandler), a good man and an architect by profession, but is forced to work late hours by his bullying boss (David Hasselhoff) who exploits him to the hilt, the carrot he dangles before him is the prospect of becoming a partner in the firm. Michael has little time for his beautiful wife Donna (Kate Beckinsale) or his cute kids Ben (Joseph Castanon) and Samantha (Tatum McCann). Ironically, he doesn’t even remember which remote is for the TV. Ben wants him to get involved in his sports activities and his wife Donna is unable to socialise one bit. When they do go out, Michael hits the tantrum button. So what do we have, a grumpy, neurotic middle-aged man hurtling to burn-out. That is until he stumbles into the backroom of "Bed, Bath & Beyond," an electronic firm, which promises the cure to modern day ailments, an eccentric salesman Morty (Christopher Walken) asks him to try, on an experimental basis, a gadget (read remote) that is guaranteed to change his life. Michael takes him on, but is the cure worse than the disease? He feels good when he can silence his barking dog and alter things to his benefit, avoid parties and go back and forth in space, a gag that began with Back to the Future. But isn’t it the old Frankensteinian monster theory? Technology can be used but not abused; after all it is man who is the brain behind all these phenomena. To cut a long story short, Michael learns that, but sadly the long story is not cut short. Scriptwriters Steve Koren and Mark O’Keefe have churned out an imaginative story but director Frank Coraci isn’t able to do justice to it. The middle is far too long drawn out and takes the sting out of it. Even the final twist, subtly put across, loses its flavour. True his handling of Adam Sandler is good. He is an actor that must be controlled but Kate Beckinsale is totally wasted and she has both the talent and looks to go places. It is sad to see Christopher Walken (remember the Kiss of the Spiderwoman, one of the earlier gay movies?) in this academic cameo. So we end up with a cute but needlessly long-winded film, which could have been five times better if it had been rid of so much of needless piffle.
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