That’s My Boy – Gross-out with a Heart

*** ½ out of *****

Running time: 114 minutes

MPAA Rating: R for crude sexual content throughout, nudity, pervasive language and some drug use.

Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of Adam Sandler movies. Their blend of misogyny, scatological humor and dark, personal anger is difficult to endure. But every once in a while Sandler shares the warmer side of his screen persona. In films such as 50 First Dates, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan and, now, That’s My Boy, he takes on a more sympathetic part which mitigates his usual by-the-numbers gross-fest.

In That’s My Boy he assumes the role of a perennial loser who must rebuild his own self-respect while saving his estranged son from a dismal life. The son, played amiably by comedian Andy Samberg, had his formative years ruined by his father’s inept parenting skills, and he is a mass of tics, superstitions and personal doubts. It’s all up to dad to rescue his boy from a presumably dismal future while repairing his own a life of self-inflicted abuse.

Gross-out humor can work when integrated into a well-developed screenplay, as seen in such films as The Hangover andWedding Crashers. Despite That’s My Boy's dense blend of low humor, most of the jokes and situations are genuinely funny. Don't automatically write this off as just another coarse Sandler vehicle. This is one of his best.