The Waterboy

Comedy, Sports

Fairuza Balk	Vicki Vallencourt
James Bates Jr.
Kathy Bates	Helen Boucher
Dawn Birch
Blake Clark	Farmer Fran
Adam Sandler	Robert Boucher Jr.
Clint Howard	Paco
Jerry Reed	Coach Red Beaulieu
Rob Schneider	Townie
Henry Winkler	Coach Klein
Larry Gilliard Jr.	Derek Wallace
Peter Dante	Gee Grenouille

Director	Frank Coraci
Producer	Jack Giarraputo; Robert Simonds
Writer	Tim Herlihy; Adam Sandler
Cinematography	Steven Bernstein
Musician	Alan Pasqua

Adam Sandler vaulted into the $20-million-salary stratosphere with this, his second $100-million hit in 1998--a movie that further shows just how deeply embedded he is in the Jerry Lewis tradition of idiot comedy. He plays Bobby Boucher, a backwoods Cajun and a mentally challenged individual with a fixation on water: specifically, on serving the coolest, most refreshing H2O available to the college football team he has served since he was an adolescent. But when he's fired from his position, he takes up a similar job with a lowlier college team coached by neurotic Henry Winkler. One day at practice, Bobby loses his temper and delivers a bone-shaking tackle to the starting quarterback; before he can say, "blackened crawdads," he's the star of the team and leading it to a bowl game. But it's all against the wishes of his overprotective mother (Kathy Bates), who wants to keep her Bobby to herself--and that includes keeping him away from the floozy girlfriend (Fairuza Balk) who's sweet on him. There are two kinds of people in this world: People who find Sandler funny and people who view him as a neon-lit symbol of the decline of popular taste. You know who you are and, based on that, you can decide whether this is a movie for you. --Marshall Fine