Little Nicky (2000)

A movie about the independent minded son of Beelzebub and the mischief he creates.

Director:

Steven Brill

Writers:

Tim Herlihy, Adam Sandler,

Stars:

Adam Sandler, Patricia Arquette, Harvey Keitel

7 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Adam Sandler	...	Nicky
Patricia Arquette	...	Valerie Veran
Harvey Keitel	...	Dad
Rhys Ifans	...	Adrian
Tommy 'Tiny' Lister	...	Cassius (as Tommy 'Tiny' Lister Jr.)
Rodney Dangerfield	...	Lucifer
Allen Covert	...	Todd
Peter Dante	...	Peter
Jonathan Loughran	...	John
Robert Smigel	...	Beefy (voice)
Reese Witherspoon	...	Holly
Dana Carvey	...	Referee
Jon Lovitz	...	Peeper
Kevin Nealon	...	Gatekeeper
Michael McKean	...	Chief of Police

Storyline

When somebody's mother is an angel and his father is the devil, life can be really confusing. For a sweet boy like Little Nicky, it just got a whole lot worse. His two evil brothers Adrian and Cassius have just escaped from Hell and are wreaking havoc on an unsuspecting earth. His dad is disintegrating and it's up to Nicky to save him and all of a humanity by midnight before one of his brothers becomes the new Satan.

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Plot Keywords:

hell | decomposition | flask | lucifer | devil | 

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Taglines:

Be Unafraid. Be Very Unafraid.

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Genres:

Comedy | Fantasy

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for crude sexual humor, some drug content, language and thematic material

Details

Official Sites:

New Line Official French Site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 November 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

El hijo del diablo

Filming Locations:

Long Beach, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$80,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£574,337 (UK) (17 November 2000)

Gross:

ESP 554,584,452 (Spain) (29 June 2001)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Avery Pix, Happy Madison Productions, New Line Cinema

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film features characters from Adam Sandler's CD "Stan And Judy's Kid" (Whitey the Referee [from sketch "Whitey"]; The Peeper [from sketch "The Peeper"]).

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Goofs

At the very beginning when Nicky is "air jamming" to Van Halen's "Runnin' With The Devil" (which is playing on the right turntable), the turntables have no covers up until just before Jimmy The Demon walks in, then they are covered after that.

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Quotes

Nicky: I never been to Earth, Dad! I never even slept over some other dude's house!

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Connections

References Fight Club (1999)

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Soundtracks

"Perfect One"
Written by Jeremy Popoff, A. Jay Popoff (as Jay Popoff), Kevin Baldes and Allen Shellenberger
Performed by Lit
Courtesy of The RCA Music Group, a Unit of BMG Entertainment

User Reviews

One or two good moments in a film of basic, unfunny bad taste moments with a cast that looked good on paper but are either bad, embarrassing, wasted or all three

Satan has decided to stay in charge of Hell for a few more years, a decision that enrages two of his sons (Adrian and Cassius) who decide to create their own Hell on Earth and rule there instead. Whenever they leave Hell, Satan's powers begin to fade and has less than a week before he will be destroyed. With no choice but to send his third, weaker son, Satan sends Nicky to Earth to capture his brothers and bring them back to Hell and restore the norm. However the simple and naïve Nicky struggles to cut it in the real world.

I will always give Adam Sadler films a go because I often find just about enough moments of inspired lunacy among the puerile and pretty unfunny material. Sadly, this outing sees such a terrible plot combined with awful acting, unfunny writing, tired special effects and crude joking and almost no moments that took me by surprise and made me laugh. Instead the film is just plain stupid with very few laughs in it at all. Of course it may well appeal to some with its silly humour and its silly crude joking but personally it was pretty laugh free and the whole idea of the film was too dumb and silly to really work. The actual plot is never a really strong aspect of any Sadler film but here it is just all over the place. It is not that it makes no sense, it is more that it lacks any sense of fun at all and the dark tone is totally misjudged and the usual moments of inspired craziness is really limited to one or two moments (the best being the Fonz covered in bees!).

The cr*p script is not helped at all by a cast that is either rubbish or wasted. Sadler himself falls into the 'rubbish' camp with a performance that is like his usual mugging but even more unbearable. With his twisted expression and nasty voice, he was actually painful to watch – and this is not based on a hatred of Sadler (I loved him in Punchdrunk a few days ago) it is based on the fact that this is a terrible performance with nothing but a terrible idea and a terrible character to work with. The support cast is made up of plenty of well-known faces but few are used well at all and too many of them are embarrassing. Keitel falls into the latter category and he has a thankless role that is not worthy of his talent. Ifans and Lister are given hard work by mostly doing voice work with poor dialogue (in their heads) and they were not funny at all. Arquette is given nothing to do at all but still manages to be lame and annoying. The various cameos are mixed – Taratino is just dumb; Dangerfield is OK but not given enough time; Weathers, Witherspoon, Witherspoon and others are all given nothing to do other than show their faces but Lovitz and Schneider at least provide some unexpected weirdness in very minor roles.

Overall, Sadler films are normally average at best but I must say that I found this to be devoid of all but the slightest hint of the inspired humour that he can often create. The story is stupid and silly, the acting both bad and embarrassing, the script filled with misfiring jokes that are mostly in bad taste as well as being unfunny (a bad combination). A real waste of time that will only appeal to the most die-hard fans of Sadler and those that only like their comedy to be very basic indeed.