I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry
Chuck and Larry) is a 2007 comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan and starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James. The film was released on July 20, 2007 in the U.S., August 16, 2007 in Australia and on September 21, 2007 in the UK and Ireland.
Plot summary
Lawrence "Larry" Valentine (Kevin James) and Charles "Chuck" Levine (Adam Sandler) are veteran FDNY firefighters.
Chuck is a sexual deviant while Larry is a single father trying to raise a "tomboy" daughter Tori and an effeminate son Eric (Cole Morgen). Because of Larry's sadness and obsession over his wife's death, he ends up not changing the primary beneficiary of his pension from his wife to his children within the deadline.
His only option is to marry someone but Larry admits that there is no woman he knows that he would trust with his children's future.
Larry finds an article about same-sex domestic partnership rights and decides to marry Chuck, making him the beneficiary and caretaker of Larry's children. Chuck is reluctant but gives in since Larry saved his life.
After registering their domestic partnership, a beneficiary office lawyer comes to talk to Chuck and Larry.
Chuck and Larry put on an act and the lawyer quickly leaves, hinting that a surprise inspection may come in the future by a much more thorough person.
Chuck and Larry meet with their lawyer Alex McDonough (Jessica Biel). Alex tells the two a specialist is indeed being sent in to see if Chuck and Larry are frauds.
Following her advice they marry in Canada (preferably Niagara Falls), since same-sex marriage in New York is not possible. Chuck then moves in with Larry and in turn, shows Larry a couple things about running a good household after objecting to Larry's poor cooking for his kids and even helps encourage Eric in his theatrical pursuits.
This even causes Larry to become comfortable with his son's lifestyle and encouraging of it.
After Chuck's first morning with Larry (in which Larry finds Chuck has slept with his maid, and made Larry finger a blow-up doll in his sleep), Larry goes outside and finds Clinton Fitzer (Steve Buscemi) snooping around in his trash. Fitzer identifies himself as the specialist sent in to see if they’re faking.
He remarks that their trash is not very gay and leaves, revealing his suspicions about the legitimacy of their partnership.
While shopping for more "gay stuff", Chuck runs into Alex and she invites Chuck and Larry to a gay costume party. At the party Chuck accidentally flirts with a man played by David Spade whom he mistakes for Alex.
The two men are extremely uncomfortable in the gay scene especially after a discussion with Alex and her brother Kevin (Nick Swardson) also known as "butterfly" because of his outrageous costume in which they determine that Chuck is the "girl" in the relationship. After the party ends, the party-goers are confronted by an anti-gay rights group (ostensibly based on Rev.
Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas.) The activists get into verbal arguments with the gays, culminating in activist leader Jim (Rob Corddry) calling them faggots. The altercation makes its way to the newspaper tabloids the next day.
The next morning, Chuck and Larry are called to speak with their worrywart FDNY Captain Phineas Tucker (Dan Aykroyd) who warns them that if they get caught, they are not to bring the firehouse down.
Chuck tries to join a game of basketball, but all of the other firemen decide that his defense is too physical, and that he has been 'grab-assing' them while they play. Chuck is confronted by Fred Duncan (Ving Rhames), while playing basketball by himself.
Chuck fears that this intimidating man plans to verbally or possibly physically abuse him (or even kill him, due to his rumored past as a murderer), but Fred opens up that he is gay, and proudly tells Chuck and Larry that they have been a big inspiration to his coming out of the closet.
The fire chief calls them in again, and reveals that the other firemen have been passing around a petition with the intent of having the two of them transferred to another division. He puts the two on separate shifts to alleviate the complaints of the others.
Larry goes into the fire station and confronts the others about it. Inside the courthouse, Chuck and Larry confront the other firefighters who apologize and vow to stand with Chuck and Larry.
During the court case, Chuck and Larry are grilled with personal questions, and are required to give individual testimony. They attempt to kiss but are interrupted by Captain Tucker who admits that they are lying and he has part in it but tells the judges that their lie has helped everyone around them and hurt no one.
Councilman Banks (Richard Chamberlain) shows up and tells Chuck and Larry he'll drop all charges under two conditions: the firefighters have to admit that what they did was illegal, and the council will dismiss it as a misdemeanor, and they all have to help raise funds for AIDS research, because they are sort of heroes in the gay community.
The fundraising scheme turns out to be a gay calendar, featuring the firefighters, and the Canadian wedding chaplain, in erotic poses. The HD DVD and DVD special features include:
Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary by Director Dennis Dugan
Laughing Is Contagious
I Now Pronounce You Husband and...Husband?
Look Who Stopped By
Stop, Drop, and Roll
Dugan: The Hands on Director
Feature Commentary with Director Dennis Dugan, Adam Sandler and Kevin James
Feature Commentary with Director Dennis Dugan
Friendship Test - An interactive friendship quiz (Exclusive to the HD DVD version)
Critical reaction
On the movie review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 14% critic rating from 145 reviews, with a 13% Cream of the Crop rating based on reviews from major news outlets.
The film was ranked the #1 "worst" film of the year according to Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum.
She writes, "I now pronounce this a witless, squeamish message comedy about two straight men pretending to be gay and learning that Gays Have It Hard. Adam Sandler gets his knickers in a twist straining to be at once unexpectedly homo-friendly and typically hetero-jokey.
Conference of Catholic Bishops Office for Film and Broadcasting has given the film the classification of "O - Morally Offensive" due to "pervasive sexual content and references, frequent crude and crass language, one instance of profanity, vulgar gestures, some bathroom humor, fondling of a woman's breasts, rear male nudity, much skimpy female costuming, frequent racial, gender and homosexual slurs, a drug reference, and much violence including fisticuffs."
Controversy
According to Alexander Payne, the writer of an initial draft of the movie, Sandler took many liberties with his screenplay, "sandlerizing" the movie, in his own words. Strange Bedfellows is also about a straight firefighter 'marrying' his straight friend for tax benefits, and then having to endure a public test of their union.
Michael Caton, the star of Strange Bedfellows, gave Rob Schneider a copy of the script while they were on the set filming The Animal.
Schneider most likely passed it on to Adam Sandler..
Australian media outlets have also been critical of the movie:
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, "it’s a direct clone of the little-seen Aussie comedy Strange Bedfellows". And, "nobody...seems to question the fact that this film exists without giving a single ounce of credit to the 2004 Australian film, Strange Bedfellows".
"Strange Bedfellows, an Australian film that Chuck and Larry is obviously based on but doesn't have the good grace to own up to."
In November 2007 the producers of Strange Bedfellows initiated legal action against Universal Pictures for copyright violation.
Trivia
In the scene when Chuck reads Eric and Tori a bedtime story he reads a book titled "The Puppy Who Lost His Way".