Jack and Jill (2011)

Jack and Jill is a 2011 comedy film starring Adam Sandler and directed by Dennis Dugan, who has collaborated with Sandler on most of his films. It was distributed by Columbia Pictures and released on November 11, 2011.

Jack and Jill was widely panned by critics and holds a score of 3% on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite the negative reception, the film debuted in second place at the box office, with over $25 million.

The Plot

Jack Sadelstein (Adam Sandler) is a successful advertising executive in Los Angeles with a beautiful wife (Katie Holmes) and kids, who dreads one event each year: the Thanksgiving visit of his identical twin sister Jill (also Adam Sandler). Jill's neediness and passive-aggressiveness is maddening to Jack, turning his normally tranquil life upside down.

Reviews

Jack & Jill was widely panned by critics; review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 3% of 96 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 2.7 out of 10. The consensus is, "Although it features an inexplicably committed performance from Al Pacino, Jack and Jill is impossible to recommend on any level whatsoever." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 23 based on 26 reviews. CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a "B" on an A+ to F scale and an "A−" from audiences under age 18.

Mary Pols of Time Magazine ranked the film #1 on the Top 10 Worst Movies of 2011. TV Guide included the film on its "The Worst of 2011" list. Andrew Barker of Variety said that the film's "general stupidity, careless direction and reliance on a single-joke premise that was never really funny to begin with are only the most obvious of its problems." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle was slightly more generous, saying that while "the Jill problem is too insurmountable to ignore, almost everything else in this comedy succeeds. The central situation...has comic energy...(the film has) successful bits and big moments of satisfying comedy, interspersed with long sections that are just annoying."

Mike Stoklasa and Jay Bauman of RedLetterMedia gave a detailed critique of the film in a two-part hour-long review on their review show Half in the Bag. Stoklasa and Bauman criticized Jack and Jill for recycling gags from Sandler's previous films as well as incessant product placement. They also came to the conclusion that the film was an "embezzlement scheme" using a high budget of $79 million with much of it going to Adam Sandler and his friends but with little effort to make a quality film. Bauman went on to say that Jack and Jill is so egregious that it "ceases to be called a movie."

The Cast

Adam Sandler as Jack Sadelstein / Jill Sadelstein
Katie Holmes as Erin Sadelstein
Al Pacino as himself
Eugenio Derbez as Felipe
Tim Meadows as Ted
Nick Swardson as Todd
Allen Covert as Joel Farley / Otto
Valerie Mahaffey as Bitsy Simmons
Gad Elmaleh as Xavier
Gary Valentine as Dallas
Dana Carvey as Crazy Puppeteer