DVD Movie Rating for: Big Daddy

4 out of 5 stars

Movie Plot of: Big Daddy

Sonny Koufax is 32 years old. He's a law school graduate. He's got a nice apartment in Manhattan. There's just one problem. He does nothing, except sit on his butt and live off an investment that was the result of a meager lawsuit he won a year ago. But after his fed up girlfriend leaves him, he comes up with the ingenious idea to adopt a five year old boy to showcase his newfound maturity. But things don't go as planned, and Sonny finds himself the unlikely foster father that will change his perspective on just looking out for himself.

Sonny Koufax graduated from law school years ago but chose not to take the bar exam. Instead he works as a toll booth collector, and spends his day loafing around. One day his grilfriend decides that she has had enough, and tells Sonny that things have to change or else it's over. When Sonny's roommate Kevin leaves for China, a boy is dropped at their place and is told that he is Kevin's son but Kevin doesn't know his mother. Sonny takes care of him, and after spending sometime with him decides to adopt hoping that maybe his girlfriend will be impressed. But when he learns that she has a new boyfriend, Sonny tries to have the boy sent back to his mother but when he learns that she died and that he would be sent to an orphanage, Sonny decides to take care of him.

DVD Production Details of: Big Daddy

Starring: Adam Sandler, Joey Lauren Adams

Director: Dennis Dugan

Format: Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby

Studio: Columbia/Tristar Studios

DVD Release Date: March 6, 2001
DVD Features:
Theatrical trailer(s)

HBO First Look Featurette

Two music videos by Garbage and Sheryl Crow

Full-screen and widescreen anamorphic formats

DVD Easter Eggs

Cast of the movie: Big Daddy

• Adam Sandler .... Sonny Koufax
• Joey Lauren Adams .... Layla Maloney
• Jon Stewart .... Kevin Gerrity
• Cole Sprouse .... Julian McGrath
• Dylan Sprouse .... Julian McGrath
• Josh Mostel .... Arthur Brooks
• Leslie Mann .... Corinne Maloney
• Allen Covert .... Phil D'Amato
• Rob Schneider .... Nazo
• Kristy Swanson .... Vanessa
• Joseph Bologna .... Lenny Koufax
• Peter Dante .... Tommy Grayton
• Jonathan Loughran .... Mike
• Steve Buscemi .... Homeless Guy
• Tim Herlihy .... Singing Kangaroo

Photo Gallery of the movie: Big Daddy

Click on one of the thumbnails to see the full size, high resolution photographs

Big Daddy

Reviews of the movie: Big Daddy

Gosh--kids. You gotta love 'em, right? Well, not necessarily-- particularly if you're Adam Sandler. But Big Daddy is about paternal devotion in its own oblique way. Sandler plays Sonny Koufax, a law-school grad who has been milking an accident settlement to cover his living expenses, while he continues to slack his way through life. But when his girlfriend threatens to dump him, he decides to show her he's serious about their relationship and pretends to adopt a little boy (in fact, his roommate's son from a one-night stand several years earlier, who shows up on their doorstep just after the roommate leaves town on a job). But after taking care of the tyke for a couple of days, Sonny finds that it's a little like feeding that stray dog that followed you home: Before you know it, you've grown attached to the little fella--and then what are you going to do? By turns crude and maudlin, Big Daddy has its share of laughs and will certainly entertain fans who like Adam Sandler best when he plays the case of arrested development with a smart-aleck retort for everything.

Big Daddy is a remake of Charles Chaplin's The Kid, and modestly requires a good many more talents than the original. The ending ablates the artistic and technical consequences of the setup, in order to subsist as a formal equivalent of the high-powered jokes that constitute the satirical basis overlaid on Chaplin's armature.

The association of newspapers with bedwetting and spilt milk is a good example. Roger Ebert's review is the second example I know of a critic misconstruing the material content of a film by 180º (Andrew Sarris thought Meet John Doe was pro-Fascist).

Dennis Dugan seems to have become the ideal Adam Sandler director, merely by becoming more himself.

The view of New York isn't exactly San Francisco or Paris, it's New York as rarely seen in films.