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I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007)

Director: Dennis Dugan

Time Out rating

Average user rating
43 reviews

Synopsis

Firemen Chuck and Larry are best friends willing to do anything for each other, so much so that when civic red tape prevents Larry from naming his own two kids as his life insurance beneficiaries, Chuck agrees to bend the rules and pretend to be his domestic partner on some city forms. But when a local bureaucrat becomes suspicious, the new couple’s arrangement turn into a citywide issue. Forced to improvise as love-struck newlyweds, Chuck and Larry must pretend to be living a life of domestic bliss under the same roof.

Movie review

From Time Out London

New York firefighter Chuck (Adam Sandler) agrees to enter into a civil partnership with his widowed crewmate Larry (Kevin James) so the latter can ensure his benefits are passed on to his children. It’s a set-up as muddled as the sexual politics of this mortifying would-be comedy, in which homosexuality is equated with femininity, femininity with breasts and virtue with a mean right hook. There are also lame fat gags and a comedy Japanese man of the sort that you thought had gone out with ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’.

Facing a ‘Green Card’-style state investigation of their relationship (cue smokin’ hot lawyer Jessica Biel), Chuck and Larry become a cause célèbre in the supposed name of gay rights, fighting to win over their colleagues and the system. There are one or two neat ribbings of homophobia, including a shower-room soap-dropping scene filmed like ‘Jaws’, but given the mincing, minstrelised characterisations, you’d be excused for thinking no one involved in this had ever actually met a real, live homo.

The film is actually a paean to male friendship with a severe case of gay panic: its leads can declare their love for one another but the thought of a kiss inspires revulsion. (There’s less man-on-man action here than in ‘Philadelphia’.) That said, the lengths to which the picture goes to establish Chuck’s world-beating red-bloodedness – if he’s not fielding hundredweights of porn, he’s fighting off nympho twins – smacks of nothing so much as the closet.

Author: Ben Walters

Time Out London Issue 1935: September 19-25


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User reviews of this film

  • phoenix said...
    Posted on May 06 2008 22:42 the las vegas person who did the ceramonies is that the guy outta deuce bigalow???
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  • Gemma said...
    Posted on Oct 22 2007 21:30 HAHA THIS FILMM WAS SIKKKKK BOII
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  • BONBON said...
    Posted on Oct 21 2007 17:58 What an amazing boring gay film I wish all gay films was this great woo wee wah wah
    Report as inappropriate
  • amy said...
    Posted on Oct 21 2007 11:30 Everyone seems to have enjoyed it, but the ratng is two stars, but some idiots forgot to put a star rating! So I'll help get the rating up
    Report as inappropriate
  • andrew said...
    Posted on Oct 18 2007 13:49 BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR A MUST SEE COMEDY YOU WILL BE IN STICHES
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  • Tina said...
    Posted on Oct 15 2007 13:27 Entertaining enough, i enjoyed it right up until the courtroom scene near the end, and then the film lost whatever trace of credibility it had left. However, overall it is an enjoyable enough comedy.
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  • Joel said...
    Posted on Oct 13 2007 20:28 This film is very funny and Adam Sandler is back on top form! The story line may be abit to hard to beileve but overall it is very good and I will happily watch it again. in fact I am.
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  • Leasha said...
    Posted on Oct 13 2007 17:11 this film kicks ass!! Another major accomplishment by Adam Sandler, which scrutanises all homophobes! Bravo lads, bravo!!!!
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  • aaron said...
    Posted on Oct 12 2007 18:29 i haven't seen it yet but watching the trailer it look wicked ,going to see it in a couple of hours, another classic adam sandler film, i also reckon no one could of made a better partner than kevin james he's mint also
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  • Frazer Lake said...
    Posted on Oct 12 2007 17:28 I love this film it is great absolutely amazing actors couldnt stop laughing lol . A MUST SEE!!!!!!!!!!!!
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  • mike said...
    Posted on Oct 12 2007 11:09 this film rocks same on any 1 who thinks its lame. lol
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  • Carl said...
    Posted on Oct 11 2007 10:24 a great film really really funny had me in stiches it is a amazing one of the beat films this years
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  • rach said...
    Posted on Oct 10 2007 18:44 Brilliant !A true comedy with enjoyable twists through out. True friendship and total Comedy
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  • george down said...
    Posted on Oct 08 2007 11:31 hilarity act
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  • lauren s said...
    Posted on Oct 06 2007 15:55 i avent seen it yet but who ever puts they avent seen it why put a revue..?
    Report as inappropriate
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