Film

Frat-house humor collides with gay tolerance in Hollywood’s latest clumsily homophobic message movie. Two firemen (Sandler and James) fake a civil union for the domestic-partner benefits—or, as their characters put it, if they complete the legal work officially making them “paper faggots,” act like “big-time fruits” and talk up all the “crazy guy-sex” they have, then their on-the-job liability is covered. In the process, the guys learn simplistic life lessons about neighborhood bigotry and workplace narrow-mindedness.

An odd mash-up of play-school slurs and enlightened barbs, Chuck and Larry tosses around its gay references with gleeful abandon while keeping its protagonists stridently hetero: Widower James bellyaches about his dead wife and pussyhound Sandler beds a half-dozen lingerie-clad women at a time. The jokes are smart-stupid to the point of hilarity; Sandler fans will not be disappointed. But the whole exercise is schizophrenic, offering stereotypes while chastising prejudice.

Male bonding is the only boy-on-boy action this movie truly celebrates, with a syrupy climax in which the two men wax rhapsodic about their unfettered platonic love. Swishy supporting characters are allowed, but only as punch lines. In a movie where machismo is king, Chuck and Larry didn’t even have the balls for one serious homosexual romance. How gay is that?