Where to watch Billy Madison
4 Stars
Billy Madison is a 27 year-old man whose father Brian is the head of a major hotel chain. Even though he is groomed to replace his father who is about to retire, Billy is extremely immature and unmotivated in life. When Brian considers making Eric Gordon (whom Billy despises) his new replacement, Billy decides to prove to his father that he is capable of taking over. He must repeat grade school all over again (2 weeks for each grade) in order to take over the hotel empire. The further Billy progresses, the more Eric tries to derail Billy.
Billy Madison is Adam Sandler’s debut as the lead in a studio-produced comedy film. The immature persona of arrested development that Sandler honed on skits during his stint on SNL served as a primer for his explosion in popularity once he began starring in movies. There is freedom in Sandler’s energetic and boundary-pushing performance, at least for a Universal Studios product. Theres not much filmmaking technique in this movie; the director is wise enough to point the camera at the star and let him do his thing. The executives must have been baffled when they viewed the first cut of this picture, because rational adults, even those familiar with SNL, generally found this movie among the most obnoxious experiences in cinema history.
I was introduced to Billy Madison on VHS when I was 15, which is the ideal age to get exposed to Sandler, Jim Carrey, and Will Ferrell, and I thought this movie was one of the funniest comedies I had ever seen. I ranked Billy Madison right behind Ace Ventura in terms of laughs per minute. Madison’s place on my chart would eventually stink to 4th place, supplanted by Happy Gilmore and Liar Liar. Thirty years later, Billy Madison still generates chuckles and deserves to be discovered by younger audiences looking for a gentle comedy with a petulant man-child on the verge of superstardom.
Directed by: Tamra Davis
Written by: Tim Herlihy, Adam Sandler
Starring: Adam Sandler, Darren McGavin, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras