The Ridiculous 6 (2015)

Movie Info

If this whole Ridiculous 6 thing doesn’t work, we can always be the adult Bad News Bears…

Tommy (Adam Sandler) was raised by Native Americans and never knew his criminal father Frank Stockburn (Nick Nolte).  When Frank is kidnapped, Tommy sets out to rescue him.  Along the way, Tommy learns his father was a busy man and meets his brothers Ramon (Rob Schneider), Lil’ Pete (Taylor Lautner), Herm (Jorge Garcia), Danny (Luke Wilson), and Chico (Terry Crews).  The Ridiculous 6 is out to rob the evil to save their father but they are also being pursued by the law and a rival gang out for revenge.

Directed by Frank Coraci, The Ridiculous 6 is a Western comedy.  The film faced controversy during its shooting when the Native American hired for the film walked off the set due to their portrayal in the film.  The movie premiered on December 1, 2015 and was released exclusively for Netflix on December 11, 2015.

I didn’t have much hope for this film.  I’m not the biggest Adam Sandler fan, and I heard some bad pre-press for the film due to the controversy.  Despite this, I found The Ridiculous 6 to be a bit better than some of Sandler’s comedies (if you got into the spirit of the spoof).

Buscemi’s always willing to be in Sandler’s pictures…especially with his friend Keitel

The movie is a play on the big cast Westerns like The Magnificent Seven (and 2015’s The Hateful Eight).  The controversy surrounding the Native American aspect of the story does have validity in a big picture sense, but the movie is a parody of racist Westerns of pasts (so true representation of Native American life wouldn’t have made much sense).  There is a lot of stupid slapstick moments (like Vanilla Ice as Mark Twain dancing), but there are also some genuine jokes that work well.

Sandler continues to play his typical “Adam Sandler” role in the movie but more of the laughs come from his “brothers” which are all funnier than Sandler including Lautner’s three-nippled Lil’ Pete (who was surprisingly amusing and good at the “dumb” humor).  There are multiple cameos in the movie including Steve Buscemi, Will Forte, David Spade, Danny Trejo, Harvey Keitel, Whitney Cummings, Chris Parnell, Steve Zahn, Jon Lovitz, Norm MacDonald, John Turturro, Lavell Crawford, Dan Patrick, Vanilla Ice, and Blake Shelton (as Wyatt Earp).

Party with General Custer, Wyatt Earp and Mark Twain!!!

The movie actually looks pretty good.  The locations are classic western settings and the movie does have a big look to it.  This is always a surprise on a lower budget film (but I also feel Westerns are easy “majestic” looking film due to some of the unchanged scenery of the West).

In all honesty, The Ridiculous 6 wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be and I kind of enjoyed the lightness of it.  It had a large cast so Sandler didn’t feel the need to dominate the movie and much of his supporting cast did work in the film (plus you kept wondering who you were going to see next).  I can’t see a sequel to this movie happening, but maybe we’ll see The Ridiculous 7 (or The Ridiculous 12 to continue the theme).