Larry Valentine (Kevin James) is a recently widowed New York firefighter who missed the deadline after his wife's death to change the beneficiary on his pension plan, and now he fears that if he should be killed in a fire, his kids will be left penniless. (This seems silly; surely if a single parent dies with no beneficiary, the kids automatically inherit, but in the name of suspension of disbelief, we'll let it slide for now.) His only hope is to enter into a domestic partnership with his best pal, Chuck Levine (Adam Sandler); Chuck agrees, but reluctantly, as he will have to give up his Lothario lifestyle. (Adam Sandler as a wildly successful ladykiller? And you thought the pension thing was hard to swallow...)
Therein lies the one brilliant political/rhetorical stroke of the movie. What's one of the right wing's favorite arguments against gay marriage? Why, it's bad for the children! This movie rips that one right out of their hands; the reason Larry has to marry Chuck is to protect his children.
Sadly, nothing else in the movie is that clever, and the movie treads a very unsteady path between indulging in the homophobia of the characters (and the audience) and preaching a message of tolerance for all. We're invited to laugh at Larry's young son, who loves to tap dance and sing show tunes; there's a "don't drop the soap" shower scene; and the movie prolongs for as long as possible the scene in which Chuck and Larry are asked to kiss to prove their love, giving us a slow-motion closeup of their lips getting closer, closer, closer. They are, of course, interrupted before actually kissing; wouldn't do for Sandler's audience to actually have to witness such a horrible thing.
Also on hand are Steve Buscemi, cranking his weasely qualities to the max as the city fraud inspector who suspects that Larry and Chuck aren't really the loving couple they claim to be, and Jessica Biel, who is highly decorative (and not much else) as the lawyer who defends our heroes. Worst of all is Rob Schneider as the minister who marries Chuck and Larry; it's a ghastly impersonation of a cliched Asian, so ugly and offensive as to make Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's seem a model of sensitivity and tastefulness.
I suppose on some level, I should be grateful that the movie presents a strong argument for marriage equality, and even offers a happy ending with a marriage between two characters who actually are gay. But there's so much ugliness and stereotyping along the way that the movie's message is mixed, at best, and I can't work up much enthusiasm for a movie that boils down to "faggots are people, too."
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