Fancast Friday Five: Adam Sandler Movies You Don’t Think Of When You Think Of Adam Sandler Movies

Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore are always the first two movies out of anyone’s mouth when deciding how good or not good a new Adam Sandler movie is. “It’s not as good as Billy Madison, but…” And so on. The goofball comedies are his stock in trade, but that’s not all the Sandman has done. Here are five of his movies that people don’t really remember as part of his oeuvre.

Punch Drunk Love [watch the trailer]
Okay, maybe you do think of this one, but you have to be thinking about Adam Sandler movies for a while before someone remembers that he’s done dramatic work. Oscar-nominee Paul Thomas Anderson had the brilliant idea of taking one of Sandler’s quirky, twitchy comic characters and treating it as if it were an actual person. One step removed from “how would Cajun Man function in reality?” With PTA’s usual brilliance, he captured just how uncomfortable life can be when you don’t understand people and find it impossible to fit in anywhere. That is, until someone equally twisted like Emily Watson comes along and wants to do unholy things with your eyes.

Bulletproof [watch the trailer]
People don’t think about this movie much, likely because people don’t think about Damon Wayans that much anymore, but he is still the best Wayans thanks to his Last Boy Scout cred. A buddies-who-hate-each-other movie starring Wayans as an undercover cop and Sandler as a low-rent thief who have to team up and go on the run in Arizona to keep themselves alive when mob boss James Caan wants them both dead. You don’t think of gunplay when you think of Sandler, but he’s a little more hardass in this one - he even shoots Wayans in the head. His inner dork shines through, however, with his rendition of Whitney Houston’s famous rendition of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.”

Spanglish [watch the trailer]
A James L. Brooks dramedy about the culture clash between a Mexican housekeeper and the American family she works for isn’t usually the kind of place you’d find Sandler. Yet he’s actually the anchor of calm serenity that stabilizes his kooky family - particularly his neurotic wife Tea Leoni, who has taken to bonding with their maid Flor’s (Paz Vega) child more than her own daughter. This, of course, bothers Flor significantly, as she’s resisting Americanization and refusing to learn English herself while her daughter is, well… not. Sandler’s humble chef John Clasky becomes a love interest for Flor against her better judgment, and if you don’t think that’s a stretch, watch Vega in the very naughty trailer for Sex and Lucia and try to imagine Sandler in there somewhere.

Airheads [watch the trailer]
Back in the days when Sandler could just blend into an ensemble cast of crazies, he played Pip, a member of the rock band The Lone Rangers (”how can you pluralize ‘Lone Ranger’?”) who, along with Brendan Fraser and Steve Buscemi, take a radio station hostage just so they can get their song played on the radio. Supported by guys like Joe Mantegna, Michael McKean and Michael Richards, as well as featuring Chris Farley ripping off a guy’s nipple ring, Airheads is still goofy fun, even if the “grunge rock” era is finito. Musicians trying to make it big is a timeless story, and rock stars being idiots is just a fact of life.

Reign Over Me [watch the trailer]
Casting Sandler as a drifting man who lost his family in 9/11 sounds like something the more obnoxious political pundits might’ve sensationalize as a slap in the face to the victims, but his performance is solid in this emotional drama. He’s a broken man who is living in complete and utter denial about his personal tragedy, and Don Cheadle is his friend who tries to get him to face his demons. Cheadle’s certainly no slouch, either, and the result is something that will really move you if you let it.