I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY
Starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James and Jessica Biel; Written by Lew Gallo, Barry Fenaro, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor; 115 minutes; Rated PG-13 [for crude sexual content throughout, nudity, language and drug references]

Anyone who cringed upon hearing the log line of the new comedy starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James — “Two straight New York City firefighters pretend to be a gay married couple in order to receive domestic partner benefits from the city” — need not keep an eye out for the rainbow flag flying at half-staff. They pull it off in a thoughtful and sensitive way, with and despite a little help from their friends.

Adam Sandler, hero to homophobic frat boys everywhere, stepping up and showing heart and kindness is pretty huge, the kind of grand gesture that countless college dissertations at some date future will mark as key in our advancement as a caring society (or some such). As a bonus, the movie is moderately entertaining, even if it is occasionally unfocused and unable to reconcile the message with its method of delivery. Sandler curbs his extra-Y “yelling guy” persona and turns his character, Chuck Levine, into a guy who overcompensates for his gentle side by availing himself to countless women. This latent softness makes him receptive to the experience of marrying his friend Chuck, if only as a favor, and letting his perception change as they encounter prejudice and hatred that is still so engrained in the culture. Sandler and Chuck both stand up in defense of non-straights of all stripes, and it is a pretty bold move.

Studio Universal also makes a bold move in deputizing Oscar-winning Sideways scribes Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor to make sure that Barry Fenaro’s screenplay would play better than the “Golden Girls” scripts that he is best known for. While the pairing is occasionally awkward, with bits obviously written for the Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore Sandler of old clashing with the more serious tone of the character-driven story, it ultimately comes off as more than just schtick. This is despite Sandler cling-ons David Spade, hamming it up as a cross-dressing gay man, and Rob Schneider as an Asian justice-of-the-peace who makes Mickey Rooney’s buck-toothed, bespectacled landlord in Breakfast At Tiffany’s racially sensitive by comparison.

Sandler and James have a great, Odd Couple rapport, though Sandler goes a bit too ga-ga for Jessica Biel (The Illusionist), who plays Chuck’s and Larry’s lawyer [insert clever aside about Jessica Biel being so much of a woman that she can turn gay men straight.] Dan Aykroyd’s omniscient fire chief is a bit forced, and Steve Buscemi’s A.R. fraud investigator is a little too one-note, but in all, the cast meshes effectively, with each other and with the story (and Ving Rhames is a riot as a stoic firefighter).

Is the movie guilty of trading in clichés and stereotypes? Certainly. But rather than pegging this as a hallmark of lazy writing, consider that using those clichés and stereotypes the way they are used here (Rob Schneider excepted) is a way of confronting them and taking power away from them, and that the wide audience that this is intended for does not speak any other language right now. In this light, Sandler and James succeed admirably, even if their giant leap for gay mankind could have been a little funnier.•••