Bobby Boucher (Adam Sandler), the
much-abused waterboy of a successful college football team,
gets fired but finds his true calling as a player for the
neighboring down-and-out team. Unfortunately, his Momma
doesn't approve of football (or as she calls it, foosball)
and Bobby has to keep his gridiron success a secret. One of
Sandler's biggest hits, featuring a group of bizarre Cajun
characters and a sweetly goofy plot.
Adam Sandler is charming and disarming as he dusts off
and mashes together his beloved SNL charcters Cajun Man and
Canteen Boy to create Bobby Boucher, the sweet-tempered,
simple-minded, bayou man-child who relishes his job of
eighteen years as the much-abused waterboy for the local
"good" (well-funded but nasty of spirit)
university's football team. True to the appropriate
cine-formula, there is also a nearby "bad"
(under-funded but generous of spirit) university where Bobby
seeks tenure after finally being driven away from his
long-time place of employment by the relentless cruelty of
those whom he seeks only to refresh and hydrate. It is under
the kindly tutelage of the "lesser" university's
down-and-out football coach (Henry Winkler phones it in, but
warmly) that Bobby realizes his unusual athletic prowess and
develops some basic people skills. Kathy Bates has an
enormous amount of fun, and is a laugh riot, as Bobby's
earthy, over-protective, swamp-shack-dwelling mom; and
Fairuza Balk is accessibly luscious in a Daisy Mae turn as
Bobby's resourceful, tomboyish, creole-cutie sweetheart.
Deadpan delivery, satisfying sight gags, and
"elbow-your-neighbor-and-point-at-the-screen"
cameos make this an attractive option for fans of the genre.
"I'm gonna open up a can of whupass." Bobby (Sandler)
"...Sandler makes the laughs go down easy..."
"...Adam Sandler has scored himself a buoyantly
silly sports farce..."
"...Loony, unapologetic fun....This escapist comedy
is so cheerfully outlandish that it's hard to resist, and so
good-hearted that it's genuinely endearing..."
"...Filled to overflowing with the baffling
surrealism and wacky wit that are the hallmarks of Sandler's
brand of comedy....For a wellspring of loony laughs, see THE
WATERBOY..."