Jack and Jill (2011)

Directed by Dennis Dugan. Starring Adam Sandler, Al Pacino, Katie Holmes, Eugenio Derbez, Tim Meadows, Nick Swardson, Rohan Chand, Elodie Tougne, Santiago Segura, Valerie Mahaffey, Geoff Pierson, Allen Covert, Norm McDonald. [PG]

Sandler tackles dual roles—a hacky advertising executive named Jack and his obnoxious twin sister named Jill—and sinks to an all-new low in the process. Lonely and unemployed, she moves in with her brother, much to his (and the audience’s) horror, but he stumbles upon the least likely of advantages: Al Pacino (playing himself) becomes inexplicably smitten with the pest, so Jack uses Jill as bait of sorts in order to land the high-profile actor for a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial. A lame premise, to be sure, but it’s still stunning how wrong it goes right away—little kids farting in the bathtub, ho ho!—and keeps going wronger and wronger with each new scene. Full of shrill social humiliations, head-scratching racial stereotypes, shameless product placement, and ultra-juvenile gags aimed at those who are six years of age or have comparable IQ’s; the PG-rating is a tip-off the putrid pic is being aimed at a family audience, but when it turns sentimental in the final third, is there any audience in the world for this? Pacino’s go-for-broke indignity resembles a form of self-flagellating masochism, but he provides an appropriate form of meta-criticism at the very end when he declares, “Burn this. This must never be seen by anyone…all copies, destroy them.” If only. As expected, this Happy Madison production features an obscene number of celebrity cameos (including David Spade in drag for no apparent reason), and a few of them have dated very badly, most notably Jared Fogle.

6/100