Grown Ups (2010)

After their high school basketball coach passes away, five good friends and former teammates reunite for a Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Director:

Dennis Dugan

Writers:

Adam Sandler, Fred Wolf

Stars:

Adam Sandler, Salma Hayek, Kevin James

3 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Adam Sandler	...	Lenny Feder
Kevin James	...	Eric Lamonsoff
Chris Rock	...	Kurt McKenzie
David Spade	...	Marcus Higgins
Rob Schneider	...	Rob Hilliard
Salma Hayek	...	Roxanne Chase-Feder (as Salma Hayek Pinault)
Maria Bello	...	Sally Lamonsoff
Maya Rudolph	...	Deanne McKenzie
Joyce Van Patten	...	Gloria
Ebony Jo-Ann	...	Mama Ronzoni
Di Quon	...	Rita
Steve Buscemi	...	Wiley
Colin Quinn	...	Dickie Bailey
Tim Meadows	...	Malcolm
Madison Riley	...	Jasmine Hilliard

Storyline

In 1978, five 12-year-olds win a CYO basketball championship. Thirty years later, they gather with their families for their coach's funeral and a weekend at a house on a lake where they used to party. By now, each is a grownup with problems and challenges: Marcus is alone and drinks too much. Rob, with three daughters he rarely sees, is always deeply in love until he turns on his next ex-wife. Eric is overweight and out of work. Kurt is a househusband, henpecked by wife and mother-in-law. Lenny is a successful Hollywood agent married to a fashion designer; their kids take privilege for granted. Can the outdoors help these grownups rediscover connections or is this chaos in the making?

---

Plot Keywords:

basketball | coach | daughter | outdoors | lake | 

---

Taglines:

Boys will be boys... some longer than others.

---

Genres:

Comedy

---

Certificate:

G

Details

Official Sites:

Sony [United States]

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

25 June 2010 (Canada)

Also Known As:

Grandes personnes

Filming Locations:

Woodmans of Essex, 121 Main Street, Essex, Massachusetts, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$80,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£2,006,945 (UK) (27 August 2010)

Gross:

$162,001,186 (USA) (22 October 2010)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures, Relativity Media, Happy Madison Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

102 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

An early scene where the 5 male leads all sit in chairs outside the lakehouse in sunshine was actually extremely cold. External heaters were placed out of shot so the actors - who were all dressed in t-shirts and shorts - could warm themselves in between takes.

---

Goofs

When Marcus receives the call about the coach's death, his girlfriend isn't seen sleeping in the bed but when he asks about the niece of the coach, she appears.

---

Quotes

Roxanne Chase-Feder: Excuse me, Princess Rita. Are you just gonna sit there or are you gonna help me?
Rita: No, Mr. Feder said that I must study for the big final.
Roxanne Chase-Feder: What final?
Rita: You tell me, he just keeps handing me books.

---

Connections

References Happy Days (1974)

---

Soundtracks

Lay It on the Line
Written by Rik Emmett, Mike Levine and Gil Moore
Performed by Triumph
Courtesy of TML Entertainment, Inc.

User Reviews

Lazy

I am not a big Adam Sandler fan, but I do really like Spanglish, The Wedding Singer, Reign Over Me, Happy Gilmore and Punch Drunk Love, while disliking Little Nicky, You Don't Mess with the Zohan and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, so I thought why not as the trailer was sort of interesting.

Sadly, I found Grown Ups a rather lazy effort. I did like how it looked, the locations and scenery are very nice and the editing and photography were also better than expected. The soundtrack was decent too, and I did like the first 10-15 minutes or so. I didn't like the acting much, but there is one actor who clearly puts gusto into his performance and that's Kevin James.

The rest of the cast range from adequate to below par, not helped by their uniformly shallow and unlikeable characters. Adam Sandler is irritating, Chris Rock underplays, Salma Hayek's acting is very forced often, Rob Schneider overplays and David Spade is rather limited and goes through the motions. The direction is not awful, but far from great, most of it is unexceptional while having the occasional flash of decency. The pace is uneven, some of the comedy scenes feel rushed and the more sentimental scenes feel pedestrian.

What spoils Grown Ups is the writing and story. The writing is pretty much awful, with clichéd and stale jokes and dialogue that made me groan rather than laugh. And then there's the story, which was very thin and predictable on the whole, with the comedy scenes rather forced and the sentimental scenes rather mawkish. All in all, not a complete travesty, but rather lazy and didn't do much for me. 4/10 Bethany Cox